THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


V 


SONGS 

OF 

THE    DEAD    END 


PATRICK  MAcGILL  was  born  at  Glenties,  a 
little  village  in  one  of  the  wildest  districts  of 
Donegal  on  the  north  coast  of  Ireland,  twenty-one 
years  ago.  The  eldest  of  a  family  of  ten,  he  had  to  go 
out  into  the  world  at  a  very  early  age  and  begin  his 
fight  in  the  great  battle  of  life.  When  twelve  years 
old  he  was  engaged  as  a  farm  hand  in  the  Irish  Mid- 
lands, where  his  day's  work  began  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
morning  and  went  on  till  eleven  at  night  through 
Summer  and  Winter.  It  was  a  man's  work  with  a 
boy's  pay.  At  fourteen,  seeking  newer  fields,  he 
crossed  from  'Derry  to  Scotland ;  and  there  for  seven 
years  was  either  a  farm  hand,  drainer,  tramp,  hammer- 
man, navvy,  plate-layer  or  wrestler.  During  all  these 
years  he  devoted  part  of  his  spare  time  to  reading, 
and  found  relief  from  the  drag  of  the  twelve-hour 
shift  in  the  companionship  of  books.  At  nineteen  he 
published  "  Gleanings  from  a  Navvy's  Scrap-book,"  of 
which  8000  copies  were  sold.  Encouraged  by  the  suc- 
cess which  marked  this  venture,  he  immediately  gath- 
ered material  for  a  new  volume,  and  while  engaged  in 
so  doing,  received  an  appointment  on  the  editorial  staff 
of  the  "Daily  Express,"  and  in  September,  1911,  left 
the  service  of  the  Caledonian  Railway  Company  at 
Greenock  and  came  to  London.  In  the  following  year 
he  relinquished  his  post  with  the  newspaper,  and  pub- 
lished "  Songs  of  a  Navvy."  This,  as  well  as  the 
former,  being  now  out  of  print,  he  has  put  together 
some  of  the  pieces  out  of  either,  re-written  others,  and 
added  fresh  ones  to  the  same  in  the  present  "Songs  of 
the  Dead  End." 

J.  N.  D. 
WINDSOR,  July,  1912 


THE   NAVVY 

REMOTE  from  mansion  and  from  mart, 
Beyond  our  outer,  furrowed  fields  — 
One  with  the  rock  he  cleaves  apart, 

One  with  the  weary  pick  he  wields  — 
Bowed  with  his  weight  of  discontent, 
Beneath  the  heavens  sagging  gray, 
His  steaming  shoulders  stark  and  bent, 
He  drags  his  joyless  years  away. 

For  dreamy  dames  with  haughty  eyes, 

And  cunning  men  with  soft  white  hands 
Have  offered  you  in  sacrifice 

Lone  outcast  of  the  outcast  lands. 
For  all  the  furs  that  keep  them  warm, 

For  all  the  food  that  keeps  them  fit, 
Through  all  the  years  they  Ve  wrought  you  harm, 

And  take  a  churlish  pride  in  it. 

Brutish  we  Ve  hashed  it  far  and  near, 

I  Ve  shared  your  woe  and  dull  despair ; 
We  Ve  sung  our  songs,  and  none  to  hear, 

And  told  our  wrongs,  and  none  to  care. 
Some  day  —  how  soon  we  may  not  tell  — 

We  '11  rend  the  riven  fetters  free. 
Till  then,  may  heaven  guard  you  well, 

And  God  be  good  to  you  —  and  me. 


SONGS 


OF 


THE   DEAD  END 

BY 

PATRICK    MAcGILL 


NEW  YORK 

MITCHELL    KENNERLEY 
MCMXIV 


COPYRIGHT,    1912,    BY 
THE  YEAR    BOOK    PRESS 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The  Navvy iii 

Dedication x 

The  Pick n 

The  Song  of  the  Shovel 14 

By-the-Way 18 

A  Navvy's  Philosophy 19 

The  Faith  of  a  Child 25 

Fishing 27 

The  Song  of  the  Tramps 28 

The  Song  of  the  Lost 30 

Fate 31 

The  Bootless  Bairn 32 

The  Song  of  the  Cigarette 33 

The  Slum-Child 36 

In  the  Midnight 37 

The  Calling  Voice 38 

Roaming '39 

Padding  It 40 

Serfs 45 

Love 50 

Played  Out 51 

The  Woe  of  It 54 

The  Long  Road 55 

Have  You  — 57 

The  Song  of  the  Drainer 60 

The  Ballad  of  Maclndoe 62 

The  Song  of  Maloney 66 

Bad  News 69 

The  Passing  of  Maloney 71 

The  Gravedigger 75 

A  Spring  Idyll 77 

My  Dream  Girl 78 

Logic 80 

Boreas 83 

The  Navvy  Chorus 86 

Twenty-One 88 

The  Waters 91 


612756 


viii  Contents 

PAGE 

The  Ballad  of  the  Long  Dam >  94 

"Hell!" 97 

The  Conger  Eel 100 

Back  from  Kinlochleven 102 

Death  of  Moleskin 106 

Choses  du  Soir 108 

The  Song  of  Werner no 

The  Slave Ill 

A  Geological  Nightmare 117 

The  Pioneer 119 

The  House  of  Rest 121 

The  Old  Men 123 

The  End 125 

"No  More" 126 

Salve,  Rex  Dei  Gracia 128 

Down  on  the  Dead  End 130 

Run  Down 132 

With  the  Breakdown  Squad 133 

On  the  Late  Shift 136 

A  Last  Wish 139 

Dreamings 140 

Mater  Dolorosa 141 

Unfulfilled 143 

The  Valley 145 

A  Tale  of  the  Bogland 147 

Longings 149 

Going  Home     151 

The  Return 153 

Home 154 

The  Departed 156 

Heroes 158 

The  Old  Lure 161 

The  Last  Rhyme,  save  One 164 

L'Envoi 167 


I  do  not  sing 

Of  angel  fair  or  damozel 

That  leans  athwart  a  painted  sky  ; 

My  little  verses  only  tell 

How  human  beings  live  and  die, 
And  labour  as  their  years  go  by. 

I  do  not  sing 

Of  plaster  saints  or  jealous  gods, 
But  of  the  little  ones  I  know, 

Who  paint  their  cheeks  or  bear  their  hods 
Because  they  live  in  doing  so 
Their  hapless  life  on  earth  below. 

I  sing  of  them 

Whose  lives  are  varied  as  their  creeds  — 
I've  shared  their  every  toil  and  care, 
I  know  their  many  hopes  and  needs, 
I've  seen  Death  take  them  unaware; 
Mayhap  some  day  their  death  I  'II  share. 

I  sing  their  life, 

Misknown,  miscalled,  misunderstood, 
Its  ups  and  downs,  its  outs  and  ins ; 

I  know  the  evil  and  the  good, 

Where  virtue  ends  and  vice  begins  — 
But  judge  no  mortal  by  his  sins. 

I  sing  of  them, 

The  underworld,  the  great  oppressed, 

Befooled  of  parson,  priest,  and  king, 
Who  mutely  plod  earth's  pregnant  breast, 
Who  weary  of  their  sorrowing, 
—  The  Great  Unwashed  —  of  them  I  sing. 

I  sing  my  songs, 

In  mirthful  guise  or  woeful  strain  ; 

I've  dwelt  where  woe  and  hunger  dwell, 

And  told  my  rosaries  of  pain  — 

/  sing  my  songs  to  you  —  and  well, 
You'll  maybe  like  them  —  who  can  tell? 

IQII 


THESE  VERSES  ARE  DEDICATED 
TO 

anb 


Because  we  have  swined  in  the  drift, 

Because  we  have  horsed  it  alone, 
Strong,  unafraid,  or  in  shine  or  in  shade, 

Companionless  and  unknown  ; 

Because  we  have  laboured  our  bit 

For  all  our  impetuous  worth, 
Roughing  it  hard,  discarded  and  scarred, 

In  the  uttermost  corners  of  earth  ; 

Through  the  drag  of  the  long,  stagnant  day, 

Where  the  infinite  wilderness  is, 
As  we  slunk  from  the  breath  of  an  imminent  death 

In  this  tortuous  world  of  His  ; 

Since  we  have  been  pals  of  the  wild, 

Tried  in  the  furnace  and  true, 
Don't  take  it  amiss  if  I  dedicate  this 

Volume  of  verses  to  you. 

PATRICK 

ON  THE  OPEN  ROAD, 
October,  ign 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE    PICK 

IN  the  depths  of  the  pluvial  season  it  gallantly  stayed 
to  your  hand, 

In  the  dead  end  of  woe  and  creation,  afar  in  the  fur- 
thermost land, 

When  the  saturnine  heavens  hung  o'er  you  as  dark  as 
the  ultimate  tomb, 

When  the  trough  of  the  valley  you  gutted  was  filled 
with  ineffable  gloom, 

When  down  in  the  depths  of  the  planet  uprooting  the 
brontosaur's  bed, 

With  the  fire  damp  wrrithing  around  you,  and  a  candle 
affixed  to  your  head, 

When  the  gold-seeking  fever  enthralled  you,  when  you 
fitfully  watered  the  pan, 

Ever  it  strove  to  your  bidding,  ever  it  aided  your  plan, 

Ready,  resistless,  reticent,  friend  of  the  conquering  man ! 

See  that  its  edge  is  like  silver,  tempered  to  try  and  be 

tried, 
Look  on  your  pick  as  a  lover  would  gaze  on  the  girl 

at  his  side, 
If  it  responds  to  your  promptings,  when  the  navvy  men 

hurry  and  sweat, 
If  it  be  proof  to  the  tempest,  when  the  clouds  and  the 

dirt-bed  have  met, 
If  its  handle  be  graceful  and  lissome,  slipping  and  soft 

in  the  hand, 


12  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Brothers,  't  is  meet  for  its  mission,  tend  it,  for  ye  under- 
stand ; 

Try  it  with  fire  and  with  water,  try  it  in  sand  and  in 
rock, 

See  that  the  slag  can't  resist  it,  see  that  it  beareth  the 
shock, 

Hurling  the  rock  from  its  fastness,  goring  the  destitute 
earth, 

Tearing  the  guts  of  the  tunnel,  seeking  the  coal  for  the 
hearth 

Down  in  the  Stygian  darkness,  ye  who  can  reckon  its 
worth ! 

Work  it  for  days  one  and  twenty,  then  if  it 's  true  to 

the  test, 
Look  on  your  pick  as  a  maiden,  but  often  the  pick  is 

the  best, 
For  the  temper  of  women  when  broken,  e'en  heaven 

can't  better  the  same, 
But  the  pick  will  regain  what  it  loses  with  the  touch 

of  the  hammer  and  flame, 
And  for  aye  will  it  answer  your  yearning,  be  true  to 

the  trust  that  ye  place, 
But  ofttimes  the  falsest  of  females  is  fair  in  the  glance  of 

the  face, 
And  fickle,  and  sure  as  she  's  fickle,  your  sweetheart  in 

labour  is  true 
As  long  as  there  's  grub  on  the  hot-plate,  as  long  as 

there  's  hashing  to  do, 
While  the  hail-harried  winter  is  scowling,  while  the 

skies  of  the  summer  are  blue. 

Enough !  for  the  pick  has  been  trusted,  enough !  for  the 
pick  has  been  tried 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  13 

In  the  uncharted  lands  of  the  world,  past  where  the 

pathways  divide, 
Where  the  many  lead  into  the  city  of  mimicry,  aping 

and  show, 

Where  one  leads  away  to  the  vastness,  the  infinite  vast- 
ness  you  know, 
And  there  with  the  grim  pioneer  it  wrought  in  the 

shine  and  the  shade, 
While  he  feared  in  the  gloom  and  the  silence,  afraid  as 

a  child  is  afraid, 
Pleased  with  his  rough  hand's  caresses,  slave  to  his 

wish  and  his  whim  — 
Away   on    the    fringe    of    the    world,    comrade    and 

brother  to  him. 


Enough,  for  the  pick  has  been  trusted,  in  hazardous, 

desperate  years, 
When  the  wine  press  was  trodden  alone  for  the  vintage 

of  sorrow  and  tears, 
Under  the  blight  of  the  upas,  the  bane  of  the  vampire's 

wing, 
Shaping  the  founds  of  a  temple,  razing  the  keeps  of  a 

king; 
To  labour  that  stood  as  its  sponsor  for  the  fiery  baptism 

given, 
It  has  proved  its  worth,  on  a  toil-cursed  earth,  and 

under  the  eyes  of  heaven ; 

Staunch  in  the  pitiless  combat,  vigorous,  virile  and  bold, 
To-day  I  give  it  the  honour  our  fathers  denied  it  of 

old, 
To-day  I  have  sung  its  praises,  and  told  of  the  honour 

due 

To  the  pick  that  was  ever  trusted,  tried  on  the  dead- 
line and  true. 


14  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE   SONG   OF   THE   SHOVEL 

DOWN  on  creation's  muck-pile  where  the  sinful 
swelter  and  sweat, 

Where  the  scum  of  the  earth  foregather,  rough  and  un- 
tutored yet, 
Where  they  swear  in  the  six-foot  spaces,  or  toil  in  the 

barrow  squad, 

The  men  of  unshaven  faces,  the  ranks  of  the  very  bad  ; 
Where  the  brute  is  more  than  the  human,  the  muscle 

more  than  the  mind, 
Where  their  gods  are  the  loud-voiced  gaffers,  rugged, 

uncouth,  unkind; 
Where  the  rough  of  the  road  are  roosting,  where  the 

failed  and  the  fallen  be, 
There  have  we  met  in  the  ditchway,   there  have   I 

plighted  with  thee, 
The  wage-slave  troth  of  our  union,  and  found  thee  true 

to  my  trust, 
Stoic  in  loveless  labour,  companion  when  beggared  and 

burst, 
Wonderful  navvy  shovel,  last  of  tools  and  the  first. 

Your  grace  is  the  grace  of  a  woman,  you  're  strong  as 

the  oak  is  strong; 
Wonderful  unto  the  navvy,  the  navvy  who  sings  your 

song  — 

For  ever  patient,  and  ready  to  do  what  your  master  bids, 
Though  you  laboured  at  Beni  Hassan,  and  wrought  at 

the  Pyramids, 
Uprearing  the  Grecian  temple,   the   gold   Byzantium 

dome, 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  15 

The   palaces   proud   of    Susa,    the   legended   walls   of 

Rome, 

In  the  earliest  days  of  Egypt,  in  evil-starred  Nineveh, 
When  your  masters  who  be  were  whirling,  inane  in  the 

Milky  Way, 
In  Pompeii  of  the  sorrows,  ere  the  lava  of  hate  was 

hurled 
From  the  fiery  mouth  of  the  mountain,  in  the  passionate 

days  of  the  world. 


Older  than  all  tradition,  older  than  Ops  or  Thor, 
Gods  of  the  Dane  or  Roman,  gods  of  the  plough  or 

war, 
In     dark    preadamite    ages    used    by    the    primitive 

man, 
And  unto  his  needs  were  shapen  ere  custom  and  cant 

began  — 
A  servant  to  Talos  the  Potter  were  you  in  the  ages 

dim  — 
But  you  helped  in  the  drift  of  seasons  to  fashion  the 

urn  for  him. 

But  you  're  foul  to  the  haughty  woman,  bediamonded 

slave  of  lust, 
Who  bows  to  a  seignior's  sabre,  tinged  with  a  coward's 

rust, 
Foul   to   the  aping   dandy  with   the   glittering  finger 

rings, 
You  who  have  helped  to  fashion  the  charnel  vault  of 

the  kings! 
—  Ah!  the  lady  fair  is  disdainful  and  loathingly  looks 

askew, 
And  the  collared  ass  of  the  circle  gazes  in  scorn  at 

you, 


1 6  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

But  some  day  you  '11  scatter  the  clay  on  grinning  lady 

and  lord, 
For  yours  is  the  cynical  triumph  over  the  sceptre  and 

sword ! 

Emperors  pass  in  an  hour,  empires  pass  in  a  day, 
But  you  of  the  line  and  muckpile  open  the  grave 
alway. 

Tell  me  what  are  thy  graces,  what  are  the  merits  of 

thine  ? 
Answer  ye  slaves  of  the  railway,  answer  ye  dupes  of 

the  mine. 
What  do  you  mean  to  the  navvy,  moleskinned  serf  of 

the  ditch, 

Piling  the  courts  of  pleasure  up  for  the  vampire  rich? 
What  do  you  mean  to  the  muck-men,  forespent  slaves 

of  the  street  ? 
Life  for  the  wives  that  love  them,  food  for  their  babes 

to  eat, 

Who  wear  their  fetters  of  being,  down  where  no  sun- 
shine conies 
In  the  Christian  country  of  sorrows,  the  civilized  land 

of  slums. 

Wonderful,  ancient  shovel,  tool  of  the  labour  slave! 
To  you  the  sparkle  of  silver  the  hammer  and  furnace 

gave, 
For  you  the  virginal  forest  was  stripped  of  its  stateliest 

trees, 
And  you  have  the  temper  that  flame  has,  and  you  have 

the  graces  of  these. 
Athens  and  Rome  have  known  you,  London  and  Paris 

know, 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  17 

You  '11  raise  the  towns  of  the  future  when  the  towns 
of  the  present  go  — 

A  race  will  esteem  and  praise  you  in  the  days  that  are 
to  be, 

When  I  am  silent  and  songless  and  the  headstone  crum- 
bles on  me! 

Wonderful  navvy  shovel,  the  days  are  near  at  hand 
When  you  'II  rise  o'er  sword  and  sceptre  a  mighty 
power  in  the  land. 


1 8  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


BY-THE-WAY 

THESE  be  the  little  verses,  rough  and  uncultured, 
which 

I  Ve  written  in  hut  and  model,  deep  in  the  dirty  ditch, 
On  the  upturned  hod  by  the  palace  made  for  the  idle 
rich. 

Out  on  the  happy  highway,  or  lines  where  the  engines 

go, 
Which  fact  you  may  hardly  credit,  still  for  your  doubts 

'tis  so, 
For  I  am  the  person  who  wrote  them,  and  surely  to 

God,  I  know! 

Wrote  them  beside  the  hot-plate,  or  under  the  chilling 

skies, 
Some  of  them  true  as  death  is,  some  of  them  merely 

lies, 
Some  of  them  very  foolish,  some  of  them  otherwise. 

Little  sorrows  and  hopings,  little  and  rugged  Rhymes, 
Some  of  them  maybe  distasteful  to  the  moral  men  of 

our  times, 
Some  of  them  marked  against  me  in  the  Book  of  the 

Many  Crimes. 

These,  the  Songs  of  a  Navvy,  bearing  the  taint  of  the 

brute, 

Unasked,  uncouth,  unworthy,  out  to  the  world  I  put, 
Stamped  with  the  brand  of  labour,  the  heel  of  a  navvy's 

boot. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  19 


A   NAVVY'S    PHILOSOPHY 

ACROSS  life's  varied  ways  we  drift 
Unto  the  tomb  that  yawns  in  wait, 
One  ruling  o'er  the  mighty  state, 
One  sweating  on  the  double  shift. 

I  Ve  whirled  adown  the  sinful  slope 
That  leads  to  chasms  of  despair, 
And  dwelt  in  haunts  of  hunger  where 

The  spectre  sorrow  jeers  at  hope. 

My  ways  are  cast  with  many  men 
Who  fight  with  destiny  and  fail, 
The  down  and  outers  of  the  jail, 

The  tavern  and  the  gambling  den  — 

The  men  who  bet  and  drink  and  curse, 
Who  tread  the  labyrinthine  maze 
Of  sin,  who  move  on  rugged  ways, 

Who  might  be  better  —  ay,  and  worse ! 

My  dead-end  comrades  true  as  steel, 
The  men  who  bravely  bear  the  goad, 
The  wild  uncultured  of  the  road  — 

Like  them  I  speak  just  as  I  feel. 

'Neath  silver  skies  with  silence  shod, 
Engirdled  by  the  Milky  Way, 
And  set  with  stars  of  brightest  ray, 

As  fits  the  far-off  paths  of  God, 


20 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

I  've  slept  with  them ;  in  lonely  lands, 
Ere  came  the  city  vomit  thence 
To  take  the  house  and  claim  the  fence 

Built  with  the  toil  of  calloused  hands, 

I  Ve  wrought  with  them ;  where  gin  shops  smell, 
And  stagnant  models  smut  the  town, 
I  Ve  shared  their  plaints  when  out  and  down  — 

My  brothers,  don't  I  know  them  well! 

I  Ve  begged  with  them  from  door  to  door, 
And  thought  unutterable  things 
Of  lands  where  courtiers  and  where  kings 

Still  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor. 

The  cold  grub  eaten  in  the  dawn, 

The  wet  shag  smouldering  as  you  smoke, 
For  ever  being  down  and  broke, 

You  learn  to  like  it  —  later  on. 

You  learn  to  like  it  —  for  you  must, 

Though  hardly  worth  the  pains  you  take, 
Or  yet  the  sacrifice  you  make  — 

The  barter  for  the  vital  crust. 

Of  things  abstruse  I  cannot  sing 
In  fitting  strains,  so  let  me  say, 
From  hand  to  mouth,  from  day  to  day 

Is  not  the  right  and  proper  thing. 

But  let  me  sing  in  gayer  strain, 

The  glory  of  the  wilder  life, 

Apart  a  little  from  the  strife, 
The  feline  fury  and  the  pain. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  21 

Despite  the  hate  insensate  which 

The  fates  have  borne  to  crush  me  low, 
I  love  to  watch  the  puppet  show 

And  count  myself  exceeding  rich. 

You  say  I  own  no  lordly  halls, 

No  parks  extending  far  and  wide, 

No  cornice,  column,  cusp  of  pride, 
No  paintings  hanging  from  my  walls. 

No  hall  of  pride  with  fresco  decked — ? 
My  mountain  pillars  rear  on  high, 
My  floor  the  earth,  my  roof  the  sky, 

And  God  Himself  the  Architect. 

No  paintings  from  a  master's  hand — ? 

My  canvas  spreads  from  flower  to  star 

Barbaric,  grand,  anear,  afar, 
From  sea  to  sea,  from  land  to  land. 

No  deep  cathedral  music  swells 

For  me,  you  say,  I  own  it  true, 

But  under  Heaven's  gentian  blue, 
What  strains  of  sweetness  fill  the  dells! 

The  rustle  of  the  wind-swept  trees, 

The  robin's  song  at  early  morn, 

The  larks  above  the  crimson  corn, 
What  music  in  the  world  like  these! 

All,  all  are  mine.    The  simple  flower, 
The  ocean  in  its  madding  wrath, 
The  drunken  wind  that  beats  my  path, 

The  arched  skies  that  shine  or  lower. 


22  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

I  Ve  sailed  on  ships  with  sails  of  fire, 
By  amber  ports,  through  carmine  seas, 
And  opal-tinted  argosies, 

To  dreamt-of  islands  of  desire. 

For  me  the  music  of  the  streams, 
The  tints  of  gold  on  heath  and  furze, 
Where  wind-blown  gorse  clumps  shake  their  spurs, 

For  me  the  wonder-world  of  dreams. 

While  you  are  selling  at  the  mart, 
Or  buying  souls  to  glut  your  greed, 
(Who  fatten  on  your  brother's  need,) 

In  lonely  ways  I  dwell  apart: 

Or  when  the  jewelled  carcanet 

Of  Heaven  decks  the  darkling  sky, 

Beside  the  cabin  fire  I  lie 
And  smoke  my  soothing  cigarette, 

And  dip  in  some  enchanted  page, 

Or  linger  o'er  a  story  told 

By  some  grey  chronicler  of  old, 
The  dreamer  of  a  long-past  age. 

And  as  the  smoke  wreaths  rise,  meseems 

I  live  in  Ind  or  Babylon, 

And  share  the  hopes  of  poets  gone, 
The  dreamers  of  aesthetic  dreams. 

Or  sing  of  Rome,  or  bleed  for  Troy, 

Or  dwell  in  Tyre  or  Nineveh  — 

But  ah!  'tis  fancy's  boundless  play, 
The  wayward  dreamings  of  a  boy. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  23 

'Tis  sweet  to  write  it  down  in  verse, 
Or  think  of  it,  but  all  the  same, 
If  e'er  you  try  you  '11  find  the  game 

Is  hardly  worth  a  tinker's  curse. 

The  open  road  is  passing  grand 

When  skimming  on  a  motor  car, 

But  dossing  'neath  the  pallid  star 
Is  something  you  don't  understand. 

In  fact  you  '11  hardly  realize 

While  lounging  in  your  drawing  room, 
How  drear  December's  dirge  of  doom 

Across  the  snow-clad  level  flies. 

Or  how  the  frosty  crowbar  sears 

The  hand  that  lifts  it  from  the  drift  — 
You  '11  learn  it  on  the  ten-hour  shift 

Where  I  was  learning  all  these  years. 

You  '11  likewise  learn  the  useful  rule, 

The  motto  of  the  navvy  man, 

To  do  as  little  as  you  can 
And  keep  your  pipe  and  stomach  full. 

The  song  I  sing  is  very  rude, 

In  sin  mayhap  my  life  I  live, 

But  ye  are  wise  and  will  forgive 
As  none  of  us  are  very  good. 

We  sin  —  we  '11  sorrow  later  on ! 

We  laugh  —  some  day  we  're  sure  to  weep ! 

We  live  —  by  night  we  '11  fall  asleep, 
And  none  may  waken  us  at  dawn! 


24  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

And  we  are  brothers  one  and  all, 

Some  day  we  '11  know  through  Heaven's  grace, 
And  then  the  drudge  will  find  a  place 

Beside  the  master  of  the  hall. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  25 


THE   FAITH    OF   A   CHILD 

I'VE  learned  the  tale  of  the  crooning  waves 
And  the  lore  of  the  honey  bee, 
The  Mermaids'  song  in  the  lonely  caves 
Of  Rosses  by  the  sea. 

For  I  'm  never  let  out  to  the  dance  and  wake, 

Because  I  'm  a  gasair  small ; 
But  stay  at  home,  for  my  mother's  sake, 

And  never  grow  weary  at  all. 

She  taught  me  the  lore  of  the  fairy  men, 

Who  live  in  the  haunted  rath; 
And  tells  me  to  pray  to  Mary,  when 

I  cross  the  gossamer  path. 

For  it 's  true  that  the  gossamer  threads  are  thrown 

From  the  holly  tree  to  the  grass, 
When  the  moon-white  night  is  long  and  lone, 

For  the  fairy  band  to  pass. 

But,  if  ever  you  cross  their  way  at  all, 

May  Mary  be  with  you  then, 
For  they  steal  the  children  into  their  hall 

That 's  hid  in  the  haunted  glen. 

The  hall  that 's  under  the  gentle  thorn, 

Where  my  little  brother  must  stay, 
For  the  fairies  came,  before  I  was  born, 

And  stole  my  brother  away. 


26  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

And  mother  says  he  is  free  from  pain 
(They  have  kept  him  seven  years) 

Yet  she  'd  rather  far  have  him  back  again, 
And  tells  me  so  in  tears. 

Ah!  many  a  song  she  has  sung  to  me, 

And  many  a  song  she  knew, 
And  many  a  story  there  used  to  be, 

And  Mother's  tales  are  true. 

So  I  know  the  chant  of  the  crooning  waves 
And  the  lore  of  the  honey  bee, 

And  the  Mermaids'  song  in  the  lonely  caves, 
Of  Rosses  by  the  sea. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  27 


FISHING 

WHEN  the  sheep  on  the  brae  are  lying  still 
And  the  lone  lake  waters  weep, 
When  the  pale-faced  moon  comes  over  the  hill 

And  my  brothers  and  sisters  sleep, 
I  wander  out  by  the  brooklet's  edge 

Where  moon-limned  waters  run, 
And  see  the  fays  from  the  trailing  sedge 
Come  silently  one  by  one  — 

Come  silently  out  to  fish  for  trout 

With  a  hook  of  silver  fine, 
A  rye-grass  stalk  for  a  fishing-rod, 

And  a  gossamer  thread  for  line. 

But  there  is  n't  a  fish  in  all  the  brook, 

And  it 's  me  that  ought  to  know, 
For  I  caught  the  little  minnows  and  took 

Them  with  me  long  ago  — 
I  lifted  them  up  from  the  golden  sand 

Into  my  pannikin  small, 
Yet  the  fairies  stay  till  the  dawn  of  day 

And  never  catch  one  at  all. 

I  took  the  little  minnows  myself 

And  left  them  down  in  the  well, 
As  nobody  saw  me  place  them  there, 

Sure  no  one  at  all  can  tell 
The  fairy  fishers  where  they  are  gone, 

The  pretty  wee  fish  inside 
The  well  that  is  marked  by  St.  Colum's  cross 

And  the  cross  of  good  Saint  Bride! 


28  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE   SONG   OF  THE   TRAMPS 


T 


SHE  eager  hands  will  never  take  us  back, 

The  luring  eyes  will  never  draw  us  home, 
With  the  changing  heaven  o'er  us,  and  the  white  road 

stretched  before  us, 

Sure  the  world  is  ours  to  revel  in  and  roam  — 
We  have  padded  it,  alone,  afar,  apart, 
We  have  roughed  it  to  the  ultimate  extremes, 
Where  the  blazing  dawn-tints  kindle,  or  the  sun-kissed 

rivers  dwindle 
In  a  land  of  fairy  fantasies  and  dreams. 

Would  we  linger  in  the  city  and  the  stench, 

The  alleys  and  the  fetid  walls  amid, 
In  the  dirt  beyond  all  telling  of  the  festered,  filthy 
dwelling 

And  the  gutter  degradation  —  God  forbid ! 

We  are  not  the  fools  you  reckon  us  to  be, 

Our  woebegone  appearances  are  shammed, 
Tho'  we  act  the  discontented,  on  the  byways  unfre- 
quented, 

We  are  n't  so  incorrigibly  damned. 

We  doss  it  'neath  the  timid  shaky  stars, 

Where  the  mountains  shrink  and  cower  overawed, 

In  the  gaunt  mysterious  places,  with  the  dew  upon  our 

faces, 

While  the  breathless  night  goes  by  in  silence  shod, 
As  the  pallid,  leprous,  moon  above  us  frets, 
By  the  fitful  fire-flames  flickering  undersized, 

We  think  as  men  unshriven,  of  an  evil  unforgiven, 
Of  the  many  hopes  we  never  realized. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  29 

Oh!  the  dreaming  and  the  fancy  and  the  hope, 
The  wonder  and  the  worry  of  it  all, 

The  gipsy  blood  that 's  flowing  through  our  veins  will 

keep  us  going 

On  the  road  while  thrushes  sing  or  sparrows  fall ; 
By  meadows  waving  lazily  and  slow, 
By  streamlets  singing  songs  of  wild  desires, 

And  the  eyes  of  heaven  peeping  will  keep  watch  above 

us  sleeping, 
And  the  dawn  will  see  the  ashes  of  our  fires. 

To  the  wealth  of  Mother  Nature  we  are  heirs, 
The  skies  of  opal,  amber,  sapphire  hue, 

The  moorland  and  the  meadows,  the  sunshine  and  the 

shadows, 

We  love  them  —  for  we  Ve  nothing  else  to  do ! 
The  eager  hands  will  never  lure  us  back, 
The  plaintive  eyes  can  never  draw  us  home, 

With  the  heaven  bending  o'er  us  and  the  white  road 

stretched  before  us, 
Sure  the  world  is  ours  to  revel  in  and  roam. 


30  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE   SONG   OF  THE   LOST 

WHAT  will  be  left  when  the  siren  city 
Ceases  to  lure  and  ceases  to  pay, 
When  poverty  hovers  across  my  way, 
When  years  have  sullied  my  sinful  grace? 
No  mother's  love,  and  no  father's  pity, 
No  fondling  lover,  no  children  gay, 
To  plant  a  kiss  on  their  mother's  face. 

The  kisses  I  Ve  had  were  born  of  passion, 
And  the  love  was  the  lust  of  brutal  men 
Wild  from  the  bar  or  gambling  den, 
My  jewels  were  bought  in  a  soul's  eclipse, 
For  I  was  gay  in  an  evil  fashion  — 
Queen  of  the  sodden  alley,  when 
They  paid  for  kissing  my  painted  lips. 

Look  how  the  lamps  of  London  twinkle, 

Hark  how  the  bells  of  London  toll, 

"  Pledge  thyself  for  the  devil's  dole, 

Fool  of  the  empty  tinsel  show  — 

But  what  avails  when  the  brow  shall  wrinkle, 

The  lone  regrets  of  a  stricken  soul, 

The  nightly  wail  of  a  sleepless  woe?  " 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  31 


FATE 

THE  cloudwrack  o'er  the  heaven  flies, 
The  wild  wind  whistles  on  the  lake, 
The  drooping  branches  in  the  brake 
Mourn  for  the  pale  blue  butterflies. 

Where  is  the  sheen  of  green  and  gold? 

The  sullen  Winter's  beard  is  hoar. 

Where  are  the  fruits  the  Autumn  bore? 
We  know  not,  who  are  growing  old. 

We  pulled  the  dainty  flowers  of  spring, 
But  we  were  happy  being  young  — 
And  now  when  Autumn's  knell  is  rung 

We  wither  'neath  the  vampire  wing. 


32  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE   BOOTLESS    BAIRN 

(1909) 

DAYS  of  the  whirling  snowflakes,   nights  of  the 
weeping  wind, 
That  move  to  a  gloomy  future,  that  come  from  the 

dark  behind, 

Carry  upon  their  bosoms  the  sorrows  of  hope  defiled  — 
The  wail  of  the  bootless  bairn,  the  cry  of  the  hapless 
child. 

Not  for  him  is  the  Christmas  and  all  the  sweets  it 

brings, 
Nor  does  he  share  the  New  Year's  hope  of  bright  and 

beautiful  things, 
Ah,  never  for  him  is  the  festal  board  with  Nature's 

bounties  piled, 
The  wan-eyed  bootless  bairn  —  the  poor,  uncared-for 

child. 

Oh!  why  do  we  prate  of  our  glory  and  lightning  let- 
tered fame, 

When  the  winds  of  the  city  roadways  are  breathing 
our  people's  shame? 

And  ev'ry  castle  builded  is  a  hundred  homes  despoiled  — 

Our  fame  leaves  the  bairn  bootless,  our  glory  the  hap- 
less child. 

Then  it  is  ours  to  labour  and  help  with  the  passing 

suns, 
To  brighten  with  word  and  action  the  lot  of  the  little 

ones, 

For  the  sins  of  our  age  hang  heavy  on  defiler  and  defiled, 
They  fall  on  the  bootless  bairn,  and  crush  the  hapless  child. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  33 


THE   SONG   OF  THE   CIGARETTE 

(1908) 

There  with  a  Book  of  verse  beneath  the  Bough, 
A  Flask  of  Wine,  a  Loaf  of  Bread,  and  Thou, 
My  Woodbine  Packet  in  the  Wilderness  — 
And  Wilderness  is  Paradise  enow. 

—  OMAR  KHAYYAM 

{As  he  would  ivrile  to-day.) 

GET  thee  gone,  my  erstwhile  loved  one,  I  am  weary 
of  your  sighs, 
Smothered  by  your  fond  embraces,  tired  gazing  in  your 

eyes  — 
No,   I   do  not  want  to  nurse  him  —  Baby,  prattling 

little  fool  — 
Would  he  were  a  little  older,  we  would  pack  him  off 

to  school  — 
No,   confound  the  morning  paper,   take  it   from  the 

blessed  room, 

I  am  sick  of  Peer-less  Asquith,  Crippen,  and  the  Rub- 
ber Boom. 
Now  the  cosy  room  is  quiet,  and  I  hope  the  world 

will  let 
Me    sit    down    in    calm    enjoyment   to    my    soothing 

cigarette. 

Let  me  see  what  brand  will  suit  me ;    ah,  it  does  n't 

matter  much, 
Every  cigarette  's  a  pleasure,  so  I  '11  take  one  up  as 

such; 
Oh,   the  delicate  aroma!     What  perfume  could  e'er 

excel  ? 
Oh,  the  beautiful  tobacco  and  the  life-inspiring  smell. 


34  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

What   is   wine,   and   what   is   woman?     Vanity,    the 

preacher  says, 
If  there 's  vanity  in  smoking,  I  am  vain  for  all  my 

days. 
Slightly  changed,  what  says  my  Kipling?     Recollect 

'tis  not  a  joke, 
What 's  a  woman  ?    Just  a  woman,  but  —  a  cigarette  's 

a  smoke. 

England  's  kicking  up  a  racket  on  the  passing  of  the 

Peers. 
Let  them  pass,  I  care  not  twopence  while  this  smoke 

goes  past  my  ears; 
What  the  mischief  am  I  caring  if  the  German  army 

comes, 
I  will  smoke  in  peace  and  paper  'mid  the  rolling  of 

their  drums; 

Let  them  fly  until  they  're  stupid,  man  was  ever  vain, 

I  know, 
Why  the  reptiles  (Latin  something)  flew  ten  thousand 

years  ago! 
All  the  world  's  a  show  of  puppets,  and  the  wisest  of 

them  yet 
Sits  behind  the  scenes  and  calmly  smokes  a  Woodbine 

cigarette. 

Let  the  sickly  poet  picture  scenes  from  his  excited  mind, 
If  I  'm  left  unto  my  smoking  then  the  gods  are  very 

kind; 

Let  the  taxing  legislators  tax  the  beer  and  all  the  rest, 
If  they  spare  my  gentle  Lady  then  I  'm  very  surely 

blest ; 
Makers  of  the  law  and  sufferers,  mankind  of  whatever 

stamp, 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  35 

Prince   or    pauper,    saint    or   sinner,    tyrant,    teacher, 

tailor,  tramp, 
Leave  me,  and  I  ask  for  little,  but  that  little  I  must 

get, 
Just  a  cosy  spot  and  silence  and  a  soothing  cigarette. 


36  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE   SLUM-CHILD 
(1909) 


is  meeting  and  parting 
A     The  wide  world  over, 

Day  by  day, 

Of  true  hearts  and  fond  hearts, 
The  maid  and  the  lover, 
And  thus  alway. 

But  never  a  parting 
Will  give  me  sorrow, 

And  never  comes 
The  hope  of  the  friends 
I  '11  meet  to-morrow  — 
I  'm  of  the  slums. 

Day  and  night  are  forever 
So  dreary: 

I  never  know 
Aught  of  a  friend, 

When  the  heart  is  weary 
To  let  him  know. 

But  often  I  pray  when  the 
Night  is  gloomy, 

That  God  would  send, 
In  all  His  mercy,  from 
Heaven  to  me, 

One  loving  friend. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  37 


IN   THE   MIDNIGHT 

A  SPLASH  on  the  dusky  water, 
A  cry  on  the  winter  air, 
As  from  the  pit  abyssmal 
Rises  a  soul's  despair. 

The  human  ghouls  of  midnight 
Shiver  beneath  the  snow, 

The  painted  women  in  terror 
Stand,  and  listen,  and  —  go. 

Up  in  the  deep  of  heaven, 
Gloomy  and  ghostly  grey, 

The  cry  of  the  lost  one  falters  — 
Falters,  and  dies  away. 

Only  a  cry  in  the  darkness, 
Only  a  swirl  in  the  tide, 

Only  a  sinful  woman 

Crossing  the  Great  Divide! 


38  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE   CALLING  VOICE 

THE  great  world  voice  is  calling,  and  the  streams 
have  lost  their  glory, 
For  their  restless  waters  journey  to  the  ever-moving 

sea, 

And  I  am  ever  yearning  as  they  seem  to  breathe  a  story 
Of  the  better  things  to  be,  the  better  things  to  be. 

The  breeze  is  saying,  "  Hasten,  we  will  cross  the  seas 

together, 

You  and  I  together  to  a  fairer  world  than  this, 
Say,  does  the  mountain  keep  you  and  the  purple  waving 

heather, 
Or  the  little  girl  you  kiss,  the  little  girl  you  kiss?  " 

No  more  the  valley  charms  me,  and  no  more  the  tor- 
rents glisten, 
My  love  is  plain  and  homely,  and  my  thoughts  are 

far  away, 
The  great  world  voice  is  calling,  and  with  throbbing 

heart  I  listen, 
And  I  cannot  but  obey,  I  cannot  but  obey. 


39 


ROAMING 

1  STEADY  my  staff  at  the  crossroads,  it  falls  with 
the  breeze  from  the  south, 
I  hie  to  the  northern  meadows  with  the  kiss  of  the 

morn  on  my  mouth, 
The  dawn  is  of  opal  and  ruby,  the  dew  glitters  soft  on 

my  breast, 

And  the  road  lies  away  o'er  the  world,  and  the  life  of 
the  road  is  the  best. 

The  gossamer  lies  on  the  greensward  like  threads  made 

of  silvery  fire, 
And  the  breeze  in  the  hedgerows  is  singing  like  strains 

of  a  magical  lyre ; 
There  is  lure  in  the  woods  of  the  east-land,  and  health 

in  the  fields  of  the  west, 
And  the  road  lieth  over  the  world,  and  the  life  of  the 

road  is  the  best. 

I  steady  my  staff  at  the  crossroads,  it  speaks  of  a  south- 
ern land 

In  the  winning  and  wonderful  language  the  staff  and 
myself  understand, 

For  wherever  it  falls  I  will  follow,  nor  question  its 
loving  behest, 

For  the  road  runs  the  wide  world  over,  and  the  life  of 
the  road  is  the  best. 


40  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


PADDING   IT 

An  empty  stomach,  an  empty  sack  and  a  long  road. 

—  From  Moleskin's  Diary. 

HASHING  it  out  like  niggers  on   a  two  and   a 
tanner  sub, 
Everything  sunk  with  our  uncle,  little  to  burn  at  the 

pub, 

Fifty  and  six  were  our  hours,  and  never  an  extra  shift, 
And  whiles  we  were  plunging  at  banker,  and  whiles  we 

were  studying  thrift  — 
Sewing  and  patching  the  trousers,  till  their  parts  were 

more  than  the  whole, 
Tailoring,  cobbling,  and  darning,  grubbed  on  a  sausage 

and  roll  — 

Thrift  on  a  fourpenny  hour,  a  matter  of  nineteen  bob, 
But  we  glanced  askew  at  the  gaffer,  and  stuck  like  glue 

to  the  job, 

We  of  the  soapless  legion,  we  of  the  hammer  and  hod, 
Human  swine  of  the  muck-pile,  forever  forgotten  of 

God. 


"  Hearing  of  anything  better?  "  one  to  another  would 

say, 
As  we  toiled  in  all  moods  of  the  weather,  and  cursed  at 

the  dragging  day, 
Winking  the  sweat  off  our  lashes,  shaking  the  wet  off 

our  hair, 
Wishing  to  God  it  was  raining,  praying  to  Him  it 

would  fair. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  41 

"  Curse  a  job  in  the  country,"  one  unto  one  would 

reply, 

Looking  across  his  shoulder,  to  see  if  the  boss  was  by  — 
Arrogant  March  came  roaring  down  on  the  year,  and 

then 
A  rumour  spread   in   the   model,   and   gladdened   the 

navvy  men. 

Was  it  the  highland  slogan?  was  it  the  bird  of  the 

north, 
Out  of  its  frost-rimmed  eyrie  that  carried  the  message 

forth? 

"  Jackson  has  need  of  navvies,  the  navvies  who  under- 
stand 
The  graft  of  the  offside  reaches,  to  labour  where  God 

has  bann'd, 
Men  of  the  sign  of  the  moleskin  who  swear  by  the 

soundless  pit, 

Men  who  are  eager  for  money  and  hurry  in  spending  it. 
Bluchers  and  velvet  waistcoats,  and  kneestraps  below 

their  knees, 
The  great  unwashed  of  the  model  —  Jackson  has  need 

of  these." 

Then  the  labourer  on  the  railway  laughed  at  the  en- 
gine peals, 

And  threw  his  outworn  shovel  beneath  the  flange  of  the 
wheels. 

The  hammerman  at  the  jumper  slung  his  hammer 
aside, 

Lifted  his  lying  money  and  silently  did  a  slide, 

The  hod  was  thrown  on  the  mortar,  the  spade  was 
flung  in  the  drain, 

The  grub  was  left  on  the  hot-plate,  and  the  navvies 
were  out  again. 


42  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

All  the  roads  of  the  Kingdom  converged,  as  it  were,  to 

one. 
Which  led  away  to  the  northward  under  the  dusk  and 

dawn, 
And  out  on  the  road  we  hurried,  rugous  and  worn  and 

thin, 

Our  cracking  joints  a-staring  out  through  our  parch- 
ment skin, 
Some  of  us  trained  from  our  childhood,  to  swab  in  the 

slush  and  muck, 
Some  who  were  new  to  the  shovel,  some  who  were 

down  on  their  luck, 
The  prodigal  son  half  home-sick,  the  jail-bird,  dodger 

and  thief, 
The  chucker-out  from  the  gin  shop,  the  lawyer  minus  a 

brief, 
The  green  hand  over  from  Oir'lan',  the  sailor  tired  of 

his  ships, 

Some  with  hair  of  silver,  some  with  a  woman's  lips, 
Old,  anaemic,  and  bilious,  lusty,  lanky  and  slim, 
Padding  it,  slowly  and  surely,  padding  it  resolute,  grim. 

We  dossed  it  under  the  heavens,  watching  the  moon 

ashine, 

And  a  tremor  akin  to  palsy  quivering  down  the  spine. 
We  drank  of  the  spring  by  the  roadside  using  the  hands 

for  a  cup, 

Stole  the  fowl  from  the  farm  before  the  farmer  was  up, 
We  lit  our  fires  in  the  darkness  drumming  up  in  the 

flame, 
Primitive,  rude,  romantic  men  who  were  old  at  the 

game, 
On  through  the  palpable  darkness,  and  on  through  the 

tinted  dawn, 
The  line  of  moleskin  and  leather  fitfully  plodded  on; 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  43 

And  no  one  faltered  or  weakened,  and  no  one  stumbled 

or  fell, 
But  now  and  again  they  grumbled,  saying,  "  It 's  worse 

nor  hell." 
The  rain  came  splattering  earthwards,  slavering  in  our 

face, 
But  we  never  hinted  of  shelter  and  never  slackened  our 

pace, 

The  mornings  were  cool  and  lightsome,  we  never  hur- 
ried a  bit, 

"  Slow  and  easy  is  better  than  hashing  and  rushing  it." 
Ever  the  self-same  logic,  steady,  sober  and  suave  — 
"  The  hasty  horse  will  stumble,"  "  hashing  to  make 

your  grave," 
"  Easy  and  slow  on  the  jumper,  will  drive  a  hole  for 

the  blast," 
"  Rome  was  long  in  the  building,  but  the  grandeur  of 

Rome  is  past." 

You  speak  of  the  road  in  your  verses,  you  picture  the 

joy  of  it  still, 
You  of  the  specs  and  the  collars,  you  who  are  geese  of 

the  quill, 
You  pad  it  along  with  a  wine-flask  and  your  pockets 

crammed  with  dough, 
Eat  and  drink  at  your  pleasure,  and  write  how  the 

flowers  grow  — 
If  your  stomach  was  empty  as  pity,  your  hobnails  were 

down  at  the  heels, 
And  a  nor'-easter  biting  your  nose  off,  then  you  would 

know  how  it  feels, 
A  nail  in  the  sole  of  your  bluchers  jagging  your  foot 

like  a  pin, 
And  every  step  on  your  journey  was  driving  it  further 

in, 


44  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Then,  out  on  the  great  long  roadway,  you  'd  find  when 

you  went  abroad, 
The  nearer  you  go  to  nature  the  further  you  go  from 

God. 

Through  many  a  sleepy  hamlet,  and  many  a  noisy  town, 
While  eyes  of  loathing  stared  us,  we  who  were  out  and 

down, 

Looking  aslant  at  the  wineshop,  talking  as  lovers  talk, 
Of  the  lure  of  the  gentle  schooner,  the  joy  of  Carroll's 

Dundalk ; 
Sometimes  bumming  a  pipeful,  sometimes  "  shooting  the 

crow,"  1 

But  ever  onward  and  onward,  fitfully,  surely,  slow, 
On  to  the  drill  and  the  jumper,  and  on  to  the  concrete 

bed, 
On  to  the  hovel  and  card  school,  the  dirt-face,  and 

slush  ahead. 

Thus  was  the  long  road  followed  —  true  is  the  tale  I 

tell, 
Ask    my   pals   of    the   model  —  ask,    they    remember 

well  — 
Hear  them  tell  how  they  tramped  it,  as  they  smoke  at 

the  bar  and  spit, 
The  journey  to  Ballachulish,  for  this  is  the  song  of  it. 

1  Ordering  drink,  having  no  intention  of  paying  for  it. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  45 


SERFS 

IN  the  lands  that  the  leagueless  and  lonely,  where 
fugitive,  funeral-paced, 
The  day  drags  askance  from  the  darkness  to  glower  on 

the  destitute  waste, 
Where  raw-ribbed  and  desolate  reaches  ruggedly  run 

to  the  sky, 
Where  the  grim  goring  peaks  of  the  mountains  sunder 

the  heavens  on  high, 
Sullen  and  lowering  and  livid,  furrowless,  measureless, 

vast, 
Pregnant  with  riches  unravished,  bearing  a  recordless 

past, 

Hemmed  with  the  mists  of  creation,  ferine  in  fury  for- 
lorn, 
The   wilderness   reigneth   malignant;    and   who   may 

abide  by  its  scorn, 
Conquer  the  keeps  of  its  splendour,  looting  the  treasure 

it  holds, 
Damming  its  turbulent  waters,  rifling  its  forests  and 

wolds, 
Bridling  its  torrents  with  bridges,  its  mountain-cliffs 

battering  down, 
Turning  its  wastes  to  a  garden,  moulding  its  rocks  to 

a  town, 
Flouting  at  famine  and   failure,  sober  to  suffer  and 

serve, 
Staking  their  faith  against  danger  in  limitless  daring 

and  nerve, 


46  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Ne'er  recking  revenge  nor  repression,  throttle  the  wild 

in  its  wrath, 
Breaking  the   front  of  resistance  unto  the  uttermost 

path? 


And  where  shall  you  gather  to  dare  it,  men  who  are 
fearless  and  fit, 

Primed  with  unquenchable  courage,  daring  with  Ber- 
serkir  grit, 

Freed  from  the  cant  of  the  city,  purged  of  fastidious 
pride  — 

Men  who  will  strive  to  a  finish,  men  who  are  trusted 
and  tried, 

Emboldened  by  endless  endeavour,  steel-sinewed,  bru- 
tish and  wild  — 

Men  with  the  tiger's  insistence,  and  faith  of  an  inno- 
cent child? 

Go,  seek  them  in  pub  and  in  model  that  steam  with  the 
stench  of  their  shag, 

Go,  gather  them  up  from  the  slumland  and  lure  of  the 
passionate  hag, 

Seek  for  the  men  of  the  highway,  ragged,  untutored 
and  gaunt, 

Men  who  can  wrestle  with  horror  and  jeer  at  the  ter- 
rors of  want. 

So  one  by  one  shall  you  gather  them,  one  by  one  shall 
you  send 

Them  over  the  pales  of  the  city,  where  the  roads  that 
run  outermost  end. 


And  there  in  the  primitive  fastness,  more  like  brutes 

than  like  men, 
They  're  huddled  in  rat-riddled  cabins,  stuck  in  the 

feculent  fen, 


47 


Where  the  red  searing  heat  of  the  summer  purges  them 

drier  than  bone, 
Where    Medusa-faced    winter    in    turn    stiffens    their 

limbs  into  stone. 
Hemmed-up  like  fleas  in  the  fissures,  sweated  like  swine 

in  the  silt, 

So  that  your  deserts  be  conquered,  so  that  your  man- 
sions be  built; 
Hair-poised  on  the  joist  or  the  copestone,  and  swept  by 

the  bellowing  gales, 

Hauling  their  burdens  of  granite,  bearing  their  mortar- 
piled  pails, 
Pacing  the  tremulous  gang-planks  as  the  trestles  are 

bent  by  the  wind, 
With  death  and  danger  before  them,  and  danger  and 

death  behind. 
Where  torments   that   terribly   threaten   engirdle   the 

path  that  they  tread, 
As  their  bedfellows  drop  at  the  jumper,   the  brains 

blown  out  of  the  head, 
Where  misfires,  burst  in  the  boring,  cripple  the  men  as 

they  fly, 
And  the  dark-clotted  blood  on  the  hammer  shall  tell 

of  the  deaths  that  they  die; 
The  eyes  that  are  gouged  from  their  sockets,  the  scars 

on  the  cankerous  face 
Of  the  hairy  and  horrible  human,  who  drops  at  the 

quarry's  base; 
The  wild  arms  tossed  to  the  heavens,  as  the  outworks 

crumble  beneath, 
The  curse   of   surprise   and   of  horror   that  is  hissed 

through  the  closen  teeth, 
The  derricks  that  break  at  their  pivots  with  the  strain 

of  the  burden  they  bear, 
Crushing  the  men  at  the  windlass  before  they  can  utter 

a  prayer; 


48  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

The  dams  rushing  wild  in  the  darkness,  and  hurtling 

the  flood-gates  free, 
The  riotous  rain-swollen  rivers,  that  roll  like  an  inland 

sea 
Swamping  the  mud-rimed  cabins,  and  breaking  them 

up  as  they  run, 
Where  men  curse  wild  in  the  midnight,  and  die  ere  the 

rising  sun  — 
Die  in  the  rush  of  the  freshets  screaming  in  fury  and 

fear, 
As  the  timbers  crunch  in  the  torrent  and  jam  in  the 

glutted  weir; 
There,  gulping  the  chalice  of  sorrow  and  chewing  the 

crust  of  despair, 
Thus  do  the  slaves  of  the  ages  labour  and  dreadfully 

dare, 
Gripping  the  forelock  of  failure  and  bearing  the  brunt 

of  the  fight, 
For  the  crumbs  that  shall  feed  them  at  morning,  the 

bunks  that  shall  rest  them  at  night. 


And  there,  stiff-lipped  and  enduring,  stern-eyed,  pa- 
tient and  rude, 

Crushing  the  savage  and  sinister  front  of  the  lean 
solitude, 

Unto  the  ultimate  barrier,  unto  the  ultimate  breath, 

Lashed  with  the  scourge  of  oppression,  swept  by  the 
legions  of  death, 

They  stumble  like  curs  by  the  wayside,  are  flung  in  the 
ditch  where  they  die, 

With  never  a  stone  to  record  them  under  the  pitiless 
sky; 

Never  a  singer  to  chaunt  them  or  tell  of  the  deeds  they 
have  done, 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  49 

The  passionate  hates  that  pursued  them,  the  battles 

they  fought  in  and  won  — 
How  stark  as  the  wilds  where  they  labour,  godlike  they 

conquer  or  fall  — 
The  courage,  the  dogged  endeavour,  the  glory  and  woe 

of  it  all. 

These  are  our  serfs  and  our  bondmen,  slighted,  for- 
saken, outcast, 

Hewing  the  path  of  the  future,  heirs  of  the  wrongs  of 
the  past, 

Forespent  in  the  vanguard  of  progress,  vagrant,  un- 
tutored, unskilled, 

Labouring  for  ever  and  ever,  so  that  our  bellies  be 
filled, 

Building  the  homes  of  the  haughty,  rearing  the  man- 
sions of  worth  — 

Wanderers  lost  to  the  wide  world,  hell-harried  slaves 
of  the  earth, 

Visionless,  dreamless,  and  voiceless  children  of  worry 
and  care, 

Sweltering,  straining  and  striving  under  the  burdens 
they  bear  — 

Stretches  the  future  before  them  clouded  and  bleak  as 
their  past 

They  are  our  serfs  and  our  —  brothers,  slighted,  for- 
saken, outcast. 


50  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

LOVE 

They  sin  who  tell  us  love  can  die.  —  SOUTHEY. 

LOVE  will  live  while  the  pale  stars  glow,  while  the 
world  shall  last, 
On  the  present  hopes,  and  in  hours  of  woe,  on  a  dreamy 

past, 
Love    will    live,    while   the    flowers   bloom,    and    the 

meadows  wave; 
Nor    yet    be    quenched    by    the    charnel    tomb  —  the 

ghastly  grave; 
For  o'er  the  tomb  and  the  silver  stars,  to  the  gates 

above 
The  soul  will  seek  in  the  great  Afar  the  Endless  Love. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  51 


PLAYED   OUT 

AS  a  bullock  falls  in  the  crooked  ruts,  he  fell  when 
the  day  was  o'er, 
The  hunger  gripping  his  stinted  guts,  his  body  shaken 

and  sore. 
They  pulled  it  out  of  the  ditch  in  the  dark,  as  a  brute 

is  pulled  from  its  lair, 

The  corpse  of  the  navvy,   stiff  and   stark,  with   the 
clay  on  its  face  and  hair. 

In  Christian  lands,  with  calloused  hands,  he  laboured 

for  others'  good, 
In  workshop   and   mill,   ditchway   and   drill,   earnest, 

eager  and  rude ; 
Unhappy  and  gaunt  with  worry  and  want,  a  food  to 

the  whims  of  fate, 
Hashing  it  out  and  booted  about  at  the  will  of  the 

goodly  and  great. 

To  him  was  applied  the  scorpion  lash,  for  him  the  gibe 

and  the  goad  — 
The  roughcast   fool  of  our  moral  wash,   the   rugous 

wretch  of  the  road. 
Willing  to  crawl  for  a  pittance  small  to  the  swine  of 

the  tinsel  sty, 
Beggared  and  burst  from  the  very  first,  he  chooses  the 

ditch  to  die  — 
.  .  .  Go,  pick  the  dead  from  the  sloughy  bed,  and  hide 

him  from  mortal  eye. 


52  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

He  tramped   through   the  colourless  winter  land,   or 

swined  in  the  scorching  heat, 
The  dry  skin  hacked  on  his  sapless  hands  or  blistering 

on  his  feet; 
He  wallowed  in  mire  unseen,  unknown,  where  your 

houses  of  pleasure  rise, 
And  hapless,  hungry,  and  chilled  to  the  bone,  he  builded 

the  edifice. 


In  cheerless  model  and  filthy  pub,  his  sinful  hours  were 

passed, 
Or  footsore,  weary,  he  begged  his  grub,  in  the  sough 

of  the  hail-whipped  blast, 
So  some  might  riot  in  wealth  and  ease,  with  food  and 

wine  be  crammed, 
He  wrought  like  a  mule,  in  muck  to  the  knees,  dirty, 

dissolute,  damned. 

Arrogant,   adipose,   you  sit  in  the  homes  he  builded 

high; 
Dirty  the  ditch,  in  the  depths  of  it  he  chooses  a  spot  to 

die, 
Foaming  with  nicotine-tainted  lips,  holding  his  aching 

breast, 
Dropping  down  like  a  cow  that  slips,  smitten  with 

rinderpest ; 
Drivelling  yet  of  the  work  and  wet,  swearing  as  sinners 

swear, 
Raving  the  rule  of  the  gambling  school,  mixing  it  up 

with  a  prayer. 

He  lived  like  a  brute,  as  the  navvies  live,  and  went  as 
the  cattle  go, 


53 


No  one  to  sorrow  and  no  one  to  shrive,  for  heaven  or- 
dained it  so  — 

He  handed  his  check  to  the  shadow  in  black,  and  went 
to  the  misty  lands, 

Never  a  mortal  to  close  his  eyes  or  a  woman  to  cross 
his  hands. 


As  a  bullock  falls  in  the  rugged  ruts 

He  fell  when  the  day  was  o'er. 
Hunger  gripping  his  weasened  guts, 

But  never  to  hunger  more  — 
They  pulled  it  out  of  the  ditch  in  the  dark, 

The  chilling  frost  on  its  hair, 
The  mole-skinned  navvy  stiff  and  stark 

From  no  particular  where. 


54  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE  WOE   OF   IT 

SWEET  was  the  mavis'  song  of  eld, 
And  how  the  woodlands  thrilled  with  it! 
Sweeter  the  song  of  the  girl  I  held 
Close  to  the  heart  that  filled  with  it. 

Methinks  the  rose  leant  from  the  wall 

To  kiss  the  lily  brow  of  hers; 
And  through  the  years  I  can  recall 

The  softly  whispered  vow  of  hers. 

We  saw  the  evening  fade  afar, 

And  parting,  never  met  again ; 
And  ere  we  meet,  how  many  a  star 

Shall  rise  again  and  set  again. 

The  mavis'  song  but  brings  regret, 
The  fading  rose  must  know  of  it: 

For  she  is  gone  —  I  can't  forget, 
And  —  ah !   the  bitter  woe  of  it  I 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  55 


THE   LONG   ROAD 

THE  white  road  leads  through  the  meadows,  on 
through  the  sunshine  and  shadows, 
The  endless  road  to  anywhere,  the  road  the  navvy 

knows  ; 
Where  the  mountains  soar  in  their  starkness,  piercing 

the  light  and  the  darkness, 

The  thin  road  lies  like  a   ribbon,  he  follows  it  where 
it  goes. 

He  has  seen  the  dewdrops  cluster  where  modest  daisies 

muster, 
He  has  lain  on  earth's  soft  bosom,  watched  by  the 

Milky  Way, 
Out  in  the  places  lonely,  with  the  stars  and  the  silence 

only, 

Chilled  with  the  hate  of  Winter,  warmed  with  the 
love  of  May. 

He  has  padded  alone,  while  the  vagrant  breezes  bore 

him  the  fragrant 
Scent  of  the  wayside  flowers,  or  blooms  from  the 

hills  afar, 
He  has  listened  the  torrents  grumble  at  the  hills  from 

which  they  tumble, 

He  has  seen  the  soft  night  kneeling  to  greet  the  even- 
ing star. 

Tired  of  the  reeking  hovel,  weary  of  pick  and  shovel, 
He  wanders  out  on  the  white  road  in  the  evening's 
sheen  of  gold, 


56  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Watching  the  light  that  "dims  on  the  western  hills  of 

crimson, 

And  longs  for  the  last  lone  slumber  and  knows  he  is 
growing  old. 

He  goes  from  the  ones  who  knew  him,  those  who  were 

kindly  to  him, 

Out  on  the  lonely  roadway,  under  the  starlit  dome, 
And  follows  the  path  that  flies  on  into  the  dim  horizon 
Where  the  spectral  moon-fire  lies  on  the  road  that 
leads  to  home. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  57 


HAVE   YOU  — 

(  On  the  road  to  Kinlochleven,  1908.) 

HAVE  you  tramped  about  in  Winter,  when  your 
boots  were  minus  soles? 

Have  you  wandered  sick  and  sorry  with  your  pockets 
full  of  — holes? 

Have  you  wondered  which  was  better,  when  your  capi- 
tal was  light, 

A  plate  of  fish  and  taters,  or  a  hammock  for  the  night  ? 

Have  you  smelt  the  dainty  odour  of  some  swell  re- 
freshment shop, 

When  you  'd  give  your  soul  in  barter  for  a  single 
mouldy  chop? 

Have  you  sought  through  half  the  kingdom  for  the  job 
you  could  not  get? 

Have  you  eyed  the  city  gutters  for  a  stump  of 
cigarette  ? 

Have  you  dossed  in  drear  December  on  a  couch  of 
virgin  snow 

With  a  quilt  of  frost  above  you  and  a  sheet  of  ice 
below  ? 

These  are  incidental  worries  which  are  wrong  to  fuss 

about ; 
But  God !  they  matter  greatly  to  the  man  who  's  down 

and  out. 

Have  you  sweltered  through  the  Summer,  till  the  salt 

sweat  seared  your  eyes? 
Have  you  dragged  through  plumb-dead  levels  in  the 

slush  that  reached  your  thighs? 
Have  you  worked  the  weighty  hammer  swinging  heavy 

from  the  hips, 


58  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

While  the  ganger  timed  the  striking  with  a  curse  upon 

his  lips? 
Have  you  climbed  the  risky  gang-plank  where  a  bird 

might  fear  to  stop, 
And  reckoned  twenty  fathoms  would  be  hellish  far  to 

drop? 

Have  you  swept  the  clotted  point-rods  and  the  red- 
dened reeking  cars 
That    have    dragged    a   trusty    comrade    through    the 

twisted  signal  bars? 
Have  you  seen  the  hooded  signal,  as  it  swung  above 

you  clear, 
And    the    deadly    engine    rushing   on    the   mate    who 

did  n't  hear? 

If  you  want  to  prove  your  manhood. in  the  way  the 

navvies  do, 

These  are  just  the  little  trifles  that  are  daily  up  to  you. 
And  if  you  have  n't  shared  the  risk,  the  worry  and 

the  strife, 
Disappointment,  and  the  sorrow,  then  you  know  not 

what  is  life. 

Have  you  padded  through  the  country  when  the  Sum- 
mer land  was  fair, 

And  the  white  road  lay  before  you  leading  on  just  any- 
where ? 

Have  you  seen  the  dusk  grow  mellow,  and  the  break- 
ing morn  grow  red, 

And  the  little  diamond  dew-drops  come  to  sentinel 
your  bed? 

Though  your  clothes  were  rather  shabby,  and  your  toes 
and  knees  were  bare, 

The  little  silly  birdies  sure  they  did  n't  seem  to  care ; 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  59 

But  just  sang  to  cheer  your  journey,  as  they  would  to 

cheer  a  prince, 
For  they  saw  old  Adam  naked,   and  they  know  no 

better  since. 

Have  you  slouched  along  the  meadows,  have  you  smelt 

the  new-mown  hay? 
Have  you  smoked  your  pipe  and  loved  it  as  you  plodded 

on  the  way? 
Have  you  bummed  your  bit  of  tucker  from  the  matron 

at  the  door 
And  blessed  the  kindly  woman  who  had  pity  on  the 

poor? 

A  pipe  of  strong  tobacco  (if  you  get  it)  after  meals 
And  there  's  many  a  scrap  of  comfort  for  the  man 

who  's  down  at  heels. 

Have  you  felt  your  blood  go  rushing,  and  your  heart 

beat  strangely  high, 
As  the  smoke  of  your  tobacco  curled  upwards  to  the 

sky,  _ 
When  lying  'neath  a  spreading  tree  that  shaded  from 

the  sun 
The  happiest  mortal  in  the  land,  it  dared  not  shine 

upon. 
If  you  have  n't  shared  the  pleasure,  that  follows  after 

strife, 
You  do  not  know  the  happiness  that  fills  a  navvy's  life. 


60  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE   SONG   OF  THE   DRAINER 

(On  Toward  Mountain,  1907.) 

HE  is  the  Drainer.  — 
Out  on  the  moorland  bleak  and  grey,  using  his 
spade  in  a  primitive  way,  through  chilly  evening  and 
searing  day.    Call  him  a  fool,  and  well  you  may  — 

He  is  the  Drainer. 

The  toil  of  the  Drainer.  — 

Only  the  simple  work  to  do,  to  plod  and  delve  the 
quagmire  through,  for  thirty  pence,  his  daily  screw.  — 
The  labour  is  healthy  —  but  not  for  you, 

Just  for  the  Drainer. 

The  artless  Drainer. — 

It  does  n't  require  a  lot  of  skill  to  dig  with  a  spade 
or  hammer  a  drill,  but  it 's  bad  enough  for  a  man  when 
ill  with  fevery  bones  or  a  wintry  chill  — 

Even  a  Drainer. 

The  home  of  the  Drainer.  — 

A  couple  of  stakes  shoved  into  the  ground,  a  hole  for 
a  window,  a  roof  tree  crowned  with  rushes  and  straw, 
and  all  around  a  waste  where  lichens  and  weeds  abound. 
Is  the  home  of  the  Drainer. 

The  rugged  Drainer.  — 

The  sleepy  bog  breezes  chant  their  hymn,  the  rushes 
and  lilies  are  soft  and  slim,  the  deep  dark  pools  the  sun- 
beams limn  —  but  what  do  these  beauties  matter  to 
him  — 

The  rugged  Drainer? 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  61 

The  poor  old  Drainer.  — 

Some  day  he  '11  pass  away  in  a  cramp,  where  the 
sundews  gleam  and  the  bogbines  ramp,  and  go  like  a 
ghost  from  the  drag  and  the  damp  —  the  poor  old  slave 
of  the  dismal  swamp. 

The  hapless  Drainer. 

Such  is  the  Drainer.  — 

Voiceless  slave  of  the  solitude,  rude  as  the  draining 
shovel  is  rude  —  Man  by  the  ages  of  wrong  subdued, 
marred,  misshapen,  misunderstood  — 

Such  is  the  Drainer. 


62  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE   BALLAD   OF   MACINDOE 

MACINDOE  was  a  Scotchman  —  had  other  fail- 
ings, too, 

Unco  sour  and  moody,  hankered  as  Scotchmen  do 
After  the  gill  almighty  —  bibulous  Maclndoe! 

Out  on  a  steamer  southward  breasting  a  heavy  swell, 
The  captain   roared,   "  To  the  lifeboats,"   Maclndoe 

roared  "  To  H ," 

And  stood  by  a  whiskey  barrel  aboard  of  the  Heather 

Bell. 

Out  in  the  teeth  of  the  swirling,  ranting,  riotous  sea, 
The   yardarms   battered    to   larboard,    the   hatchways 

shattered  to  lee  — 
(Something  like  that  he  told  me  —  the  cook  of  the 

Buzzy  Bee.) 

The  Bell  went  this  way  and  that  way,  forward  and 

back  again, 
Then  sank  on  the  seething  billows,  leaving  poor  Mac 

alane, 
Perched  on  a  whiskey  barrel  out  on  the  Spanish  main. 

But  his  was  a  courage  undaunted,  courage  that  never 

could  fail, 
He  placed  himself  up  for  a  mainmast,  spread  out  his 

coat  for  a  sail, 
And  wondering  where  he  was  going,  he  drifted  before 

the  gale. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  63 

On  to  his  slippery  foothold  grimly  and  gaunt  he  clung, 
Till  daybreak  its  shafts  of  carmine  over  the  waters 

flung  — 
"  Noo,"  said  the  thirsty  sailor,  "  I  think  I  '11  tak'  oot 

the  bung." 

But  the  plans  o'  a  moose  or  sailor  gang  aften  times 

agley, 
And  you  '11  hardly  open  a  barrel,  labour  and  tug  as 

you  may, 
Out  on  the  frivolous  ocean  in  the  old  methodical  way. 

So  Sandy  found  to  his  terror,  and  cursed  his  luckless 

star, 
That  poor   benighted,   sweating,  swearing,   sorrowing 

tar, 
Who  murmured  loud  in  his  anguish,  "  So  near  and  yet 

so  far." 

He  watched  the  languid  ocean  in  leisurely  wavelets 

roll; 
The  fiery  sun  in  the  heaven  was  scorching  his  very 

soul  — 
"  Oh,   for  a  raft  of  an  iceberg,  near  tae  the  Arctic 

Pole." 

He  seated  himself  on  his  barrel  and  pondered  on  Auld 

Lang  Syne, 
Brose  and  bannocks  and  Burns,  water  and  women  and 

wine, 
Then  scooped  up  the  waves  of  the  ocean,  and  drank  of 

the  arid  brine. 

Below   the  sensuous   waters,   above   him   the  heavens 
grim  — 


64  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

What  was  it  rose  for  a  moment  ominous,  vague  and 
dim? 

Maclndoe  shuddered  in  horror  —  a  shark  was  follow- 
ing him ! 

Night  came  dreary  and  darkling,  he  saw  the  cleaving 

fin 
Of  the  fish  draw  near  and  nearer,  ugly  and  fell  as 

sin  — 
"  God,"  said  the  shivering  sailor,  "  such  a  fix  to  be  in !  " 

He  tore  his  coat  to  ribbons  and  lashed  himself  to  his 

raft, 
Slept,  and  dreamt  of  devils,  woke  from  his  sleep  and 

laughed, 
There  was  the  sign  of  the  monster  slowly  following  aft. 

The  moon  was  up  in  the  heavens  ghastly,  gibbous  and 

wan, 

But  not  as  pale  as  the  lonely,  sorrowful,  sinful  mon, 
Who,  tied  to  a  whiskey  barrel,  waited  till  day  would 

dawn. 

Day  and  the  young  day's  blushes  spread  away  to  the 

rear, 
The  man  stood  up  on  his  timbers  and  feared  with  a 

deadly  fear, 
There  was  the  fin  of  the  monster  ever  approaching  near. 

Opal  and  ruby  and  diamond   glimmered  the  eastern 

sky, 
And  the  waters  that  circled  the  barrel  laughed  to  the 

sun  on  high, 
"  Christ !  "  —  and  the  sailor  shuddered,  "  a  beautiful 

day  to  die." 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  65 

He  thought  of  the  mother  who  bore  him,  he  thought 

of  the  homely  croft, 
Where  the  heath  of  the  hill  was  purple,  the  grass  of 

the  field  was  soft, 
Then  he  looked  to  the  sky  above  him,  and  thought  of 

the  God  aloft. 

He  ventured  to  kneel  to  heaven  and  pray  for  a  drop  of 

rain, 
His  knees  were  creaking  and  aching,  he  moaned  as  a 

child  in  pain, 
But  found  he  forgot  what  the  words  were,  and  rose  to 

his  feet  again. 

Down  in  the  deep  below  him  he  saw  the  sword  fish 

swim, 
The  weird  uncanny  spectres  rise  from  their  caverns 

dim, 
But  one  still  stayed  on  the  surface  waiting  he  knew  for 

him. 

Morning  and  night  and  morning,  light  and  darkness 

and  light, 
Hungry  when  stars  were  beaming,  thirsty  when  noon 

was  bright, 
Hungry  and  tired  and  thirsty  and  —  Heavens,  a  sail 

in  sight! 

They  picked  him  up  from  the  ocean,  the  grinning,  gib- 
bering Gael, 

Nude  as  a  nymph  on  his  barrel,  using  his  shirt  for  a 
sail  — 

Thus  they  told  it  to  me  on  the  Buzzy  Bee, 

But  I  never  believed  the  tale. 


66  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE   SONG   OF   MALONEY 

THEY  are  gambling  in  the  cabin,  Moleskin  Joe, 
Magee  and  Dan, 

There  's  a  splash  of  stagnant  crimson  on  the  lance- 
edged  hills  afar  — 

I  Ve  a  whiff  of  good  tobacco,  and  a  bucket  in  the  can, 
And   a   sort  of   fawning  liking   for   the   trembling 

evening  star, 
And  my  thoughts  go  roaming,  roaming,  like  an  exile's 

in  the  gloaming, 
Through  the  grey  fogs  of  the  valley  and  the  cloud 

wreaths  of  the  hill, 

And  I  think  I  see  her  yet,  where  in  olden  days  we  met, 
Awaiting  at  the  corner  for  her  bloke  returning  still. 

Moleskin's  plunging  bob  and  tanner,  he  would  call  me 

such  a  fool 
If  he  knew  what  I  was  thinking  in  the  heel-end  of 

the  day, 
But  somehow  I  cannot  help  it,  and  I  cannot  bear  the 

school, 
For  my  thoughts  are  ever  running  to  a  maiden  miles 

away, 
To    a    maiden    hellish    pretty,    in    the    dirty,    smoky 

city, 
Poor  as  me  she  is,  and  poorer,  but  a  year  or  two 

ago, 
Ere  I  came  to  swine  in  muck  where  all  nature  's  down 

on  luck, 
She  was  more  to  me  I  reckon  than  anyone  I  know. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  67 

O'er  the  dam,  across  the  breastworks,  drops  the  night 

and  fills  the  land, 
There  are  lights  inside  the  cabin,  there  are  many  at 

the  game, 

But    away   down   in   the    city    does   she   ever   under- 
stand 
The  reason  that  I  'm  lagging,  and  the  why  I  never 

came  ?  — 
Maybe  she  's  forgot  about  me,  plodding  on  her  own 

without  me, 
I  the  roughest  card  among  us,  I  the  plunger  at  the 

school, 
And  the  pallid  evening  star  whispers,  "  Idiot  that  you 

are ! 

Do  you  really  think  she  wants  you,  you  a  whiskey- 
sodden  fool?  " 


Down  behind  the  mountain  ridges,  grave-like  valleys 

gulp  the  night, 
Far  below  the  grave-like  valleys  lies  the  town  of 

which  I  dream, 
With   its  many   lamps  aglitter,   and   the  music  halls 

alight, 
And  the  galleries  are  crowded,  and  the  footlights 

are  agleam, 
And  perhaps  the  actress  singing,  some  fond  memories  is 

bringing 
Of  the  kisses  in  the  alley,  and  the  softly  whispered 

vow  — 
Here  I  'm  dreaming  miles  away,  she  is  sitting  at  the 

play, 

Maybe  thinking  kindly  of  me  as  I  'm  thinking  of  her 
now. 


68  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

And  the  photo  that  she  gave  me,  on  the  lonely  night 

we  parted 
I  have  lost  it,  't  was  the  night  we  tried  to  clear  the 

McSurly's  bar  — 

"  Come,  Maloney,  fill  the  school  up  —  "    Well,  when- 
ever you  have  started 
On  the  downward  road,  its  smoother  than  the  other 

road  by  far  — 
All  right,  Carroty,  I  'm  willing,  I  have  got  an  extra 

shilling  — 
Mary  Somers,  oh,  she  's  hooked  up  by  some  collared 

city  chap, 
But  perhaps  I  '11  meet  her  yet,  for  somehow  I  can't 

forget  — 

Shut  up,  Moleskin,  here  I  'm  coming,  is  it  banker, 
brag,  or  nap  ? 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  69 


BAD   NEWS 

(McSurly's  Bar.) 
He  hugged  a  delusion  in  petticoats.  —  MOLESKIN. 


"  WOUR  flame  is  marri'd  I  understand," 

X     He  heard  the  man  from  the  city  say, 
He  dealt  the  flats  with  a  shaky  hand  * 

And  clean  forgot  the  manner  of  play; 
I  saw  his  eyelids  quiver  a  bit, 

And  Big  Maloney  was  never  a  saint, 
He  played  the  game,  made  a  mess  of  it, 

Yet  his  partner  saw  it  without  complaint. 

He  shoved  the  ringers  to  beat  the  four, 

And  led  the  queen  for  another's  ace, 
Then  jacked  his  hand  and  staked  no  more, 

So  Carroty  Dan  took  up  his  place. 
He  sat  apart  on  the  wooden  seat 

Pulling  a  clay  that  was  not  alight, 
Shaking  his  head,  and  shuffling  his  feet  — 

Maloney  was  out  of  sorts  that  night. 

I  noticed  the  lines  on  his  haggard  face, 

I  heard  him  sigh.    We  played  the  game  — 
"  Moleskin,  lead."    He  led  the  ace  ; 

Carroty  Dan  had  the  Jack  for  the  same. 
Some  muttered  :  "  There  's  more  fish  in  the  sea," 

And  others  remarked  :   "  A  maid  's  a  maid," 
"  There  is  n't  another  girl  for  me," 

Was  all  that  Big  Maloney  said. 

1  He  becometh    poor  who    dealeth  with   a   slack    hand.  - 
Prov.  x.,  4. 


70  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Poor  Maloney!    And  still  we  played  — 

"  Where,  M'Kay,  is  the  trump  you  gave?  " 
"  Well,  it  is  queer,"  another  said, 

"  I  thought  he  'd  play  on  his  mother's  grave." 
But  Jim  Maloney  was  looking  sad, 

Another  fellow  had  hooked  his  flame, 
And  some  remarked,  "  Is  it  not  too  bad  ?  " 

As  we  shuffled  the  cards  and  played  the  game. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  71 


THE    PASSING   OF   MALONEY 

IN  the  chill  of  anaemic  December  when  the  snow  on 
the  ditchway  lay, 
He  bursted  the  jaw  of  the  gaffer,  in  an  argumentative 

way  1 

Got  handed  his  couple  of  shillings  and  went  in  the 
evening  grey  — 

Into  the  dip  of  the  hollow  a  moving  speck  on  the  snow, 
Bound  for  the  township  and  model,  eighty  miles  off 

or  so, 
And  his  comrades  leaned  on  their  shovels,  and  sorrowed 

to  see  him  go. 

That  night  they  kept  from  the  card  school,  and  smoked 

in  silence  apart, 
Swore  at  the  cloud-drift,  and  listened  the  night  winds 

fitfully  start, 
And  felt  a  chill  in  the  marrow  or  an  icy  grip  on  the 

heart. 

Quickly  he  padded  the  mountain,  and  dragged  thro' 
the  desolate  vale, 

And  over  the  gap-toothed  ridges,  where  the  flaccid  sun- 
sets fail, 

And  the  endless  cumulus  musters  glaucous  or  flaxen 
pale. 

1  The  opinion  of  the  man  who  argues  with  his  fist  is  always 
respected.  —  From  the  Diary  of  Moleskin  Joe. 


72  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Broad-chested,   lank    Maloney,   muscular,   strong   and 

wild, 
A  Berserkir  fierce  in  his  anger,  simple  in  faith  as  a 

child, 
The  primitive  human  in  moleskin,  uncultured  and 

undefiled. 


Crunching   and   crushing   the   snow-way,   cursing   his 

luck  when  he  fell, 
He  plodded  unweary,  unfearing,  by  quagmire  and  tarn 

and  well, 
And  a  star  o'erhead  where  the  cloudrift  spread  gleamed 

like  an  asphodel, 


Gleamed  for  a  tremulous  moment,  fading  as  soon  as 
it  shone, 

Leaving  him  lost  in  the  vastness  of  night  and  its  by- 
ways unknown, 

With  a  charnel  gloominess  girded,  affrighted,  astray 
and  alone. 


Otiose,  obdurate,  ominous,  drifted  the  snow  in  the  air, 
Gibingly,  grim,  geomantic,  tracing  the  lines  of  despair, 
Weaving  a  shroud  for  his  body,  shaping  a  wreath  for 
his  hair. 


"  Where  am  I  straying  to  anyhow  ?    Cold !    I  am  cold 

to  the  skin.  .  .  . 
Lord,  he  's  a  hell  of  a  gaffer !  .  .  how  did  the  quarrel 

begin? 
Called  me  an  imp  of  the  devil,  and  managed  to  get  me 

my  tin. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  73 

"  I  'm  sure  I  am  lost  in  the  darkness  —  ain't  it  a  hor- 
rible fix, 

Knowing  your  final  is  coming.  .  .  .  Curse  him,  the 
imp  of  old  Nick's. 

Every  foot  that  I  'm  lifting  drags  like  a  bundle  of 
bricks. 

"  I  'm  padding  it  round  in  a  circle  —  round  in  a  circle 

—  and   round.  .  .  . 
To-morrow  they  '11  search  and  they  '11  find  me,  dead 

like  a  brute  on  the  ground. 
Dead !  .  .  'T  is  the  corpse  of  Maloney,  Moleskin  will 

say  when  I  'm  found. 

"  Mary,  the  girl  that  I  courted  —  how  under  hell  can 

it  be  — 
There   she 's  smiling  .  .  .  she  's   calling,   calling  and 

beckoning  me! 
Look  at  the  swarm  of  demons  —  and  grinning  like 

blazes  they  be. 

"  Shoving  it  on  to  a  fellow,  'cause  you  are  boss  of  the 

show.  .  .  . 
Here  I  am  raving  and  raving,  wandering  round  in  the 

snow, 
Going  to  hell  in  a  blizzard  —  well,  it  is  time  I  should 

go! 

"  Drinks  to  the  bar  and  I  '11  stand  it,  everyone  here  in 

the  place.  .  .  . 
Turn  a  man  off  in  the  snow-drift  —  go,  or  I  '11  batter 

your  face.  .  .  . 
Matey,  my  turn  at  the  hammer  —  I  'm  for  a  bob  on 

the  ace." 


74  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

He  jacked  up  his  soul  in  the  darkness,  and  slept  in  an 

angel  white  shroud, 
And  the  ghouls  of  the  moorland  kept  litchwake  under 

the  canopied  cloud, 
When  nature  was  yelling  in  anguish  and  the  turbulent 

tempest  was  loud. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  75 


THE   GRAVE   DIGGER 

I  spoke  to  a  man  once;  asking  what  he  thought  of  going  back 
to  the  land  and  having  small  holdings.  "  Very  good,"  he  said, 
"  in  fact  the  solution  of  all  ills." 

Afterwards  I  learned  that  he  was  a  grave-digger. 

—  From  "  Gleanings  from  a  Navvy's  Scrap-Book." 

If  some  people  rose  from  the  dead  and  read  their  epitaphs  they 
would  think  they  had  got  into  the  wrong  graves! 

—  MOLESKIN  JOE. 

A  GRIM  old  man  with  a  weazened  visage  — 
What  does  he  dream  of  toiling  there? 
Rest  should  be  meet  for  a  man  of  his  age, 
Old  and  weary  —  but  who  may  care? 
There,  when  the  dawn's  bright  pennon  waves, 
There,  when  the  fleeting  eve  fails  dimly, 
Aloof  and  alone  he  labours  grimly, 
Earning  a  living,  digging  graves. 

So  much  a  grave,  and  a  soul 's  in  Heaven : 
So  much  a  grave,  and  a  soul 's  in  Hell : 
For  old-world  death  makes  matters  even, 
The  sexton  profits,  and  all  is  well. 
All  is  well  —  but  the  lover  raves, 
And  tears  are  wet  on  the  downcast  lashes. 
"  Dust  to  dust,  and  ashes  to  ashes," 
Ponders  the  sexton,  digging  graves. 

Some  go  into  the  House  of  Pleasure, 
Some  go  into  the  House  of  Gloom  ; 
The  miser  hoards  up  his  garnered  treasure, 
The  treasure  the  rust  and  moth  consume. 


76  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Alas!  for  the  wealth  the  miser  saves, 
In  the  House  of  Pain  or  the  House  of  Passion. 
"  He  '11  need  it  not  in  the  House  I  fashion  "  — 
Chuckles  the  sexton,  digging  graves. 

All  are  his  tenants,  lord  and  lady, 

Villain  and  harlot  of  low  degree, 

Simpering  saint,  and  sinner  shady, 

Every  manner  of  companie, 

Their  homes  with  brainless  skulls  he  paves, 

Lily  white  as  alabaster. 

"  Even  the  brainless  know  I  'm  master," 

Muses  the  sexton,  digging  graves. 

But  there  he  labours,  the  cynic  sexton, 

For  all  men  toil  and  the  sexton  must; 

Waiting  betimes  for  the  silent  next  one, 

Next  —  not  last,  to  the  House  of  dust. 

This  is  the  Home  of  squires  and  slaves, 

Still  from  the  hall,  and  stiff  from  the  hovel. 

"  I  '11  house  them  alike  with  my  pick  and  shovel," 

Chuckles  the  sexton,  digging  graves. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  77 


A   SPRING   IDYLL 

ON  my  hangings  of  arras 
Dewdrop   and   sunlight   commingle, 
The  music  of  woods  that  are  endless, 
And  infinite  seas 

That  come  with  the  voices 
Of  storm  or  of  calm  to  the  shingle 
In  the  lilac  grey  blush  of  the  dawn, 
On  the  sensuous  breeze. 

So  full  of  promise  is  earth 
As  a  child's  gentle  laughter, 
The  sapphire  tints  of  the  water 
Are  fair  to  the  eyes  — 
The  present  is  only, 
I  know  not  a  past  nor  hereafter, 
And  forth  from  my  covering 
Of  saffron  and  ermine  I  rise. 


78  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


MY   DREAM    GIRL 

LIKE  a  flower  in  the  mist  of  the  moorland,  spectral, 
shadowy, 
Is  she  the  girl  of  my  dreamings,  simple  and  fawn-like 

shy; 
Hers   the   ethereal   radiance   of   heavenly   groves   and 

streams ; 
Such  as  the  painter  pictures,  such  as  the  poet  dreams. 

Out  in  the  open  spaces  she  beckons  my  spirit  on, 
She  that  is  born  of  evening,  and  fades  in  the  lilac  dawn. 
She  comes  from  the  ports  of  the  flaxen  moon  on  one  of 

the  spirit  ships, 
Her  tresses  are  night's  abysses,  the  red  rose  gleams  on 

her  lips, 
Through  the  soft,  impalpable  ether  she  has  ordered  her 

ship  to  go, 
By  Peristan  of  the  musk-winds,  where  snow-white  spice 

flowers  blow; 
On  the  manes  of  the  crooning  breezes,  by  fairy  lands 

untold, 
She  comes  in  the  guise  of  a  mortal,  who  never  groweth 

old; 
Through  the  tangle  of  gossamer  silver  the  bow  of  her 

vessel  cleaves, 
And  the  moonlight  opens  before  it  with  a  rustle  of 

willow  leaves, 
Down  to  the  fringe  of  the  moorland  where  the  land 

and  the  heavens  meet, 
Where  the  quivering  bloom  of  the  heather  presses  to 

kiss  her  feet, 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  79 

Prankt  in  a  robe  of  star-mist  tinged  with  its  many 

dyes. 
And  I  watch  as  a  lover  watches  till  the  transient  vision 

flies  — 
The  mystic  girl  of  my  dreamings,  simple  and  fawn-like 

shy, 
The  flower  in  the  mist  of  the  moorland,  lonesome  and 

shadowy. 


8o  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


LOGIC 

"  "DALMAM  quf  meruit  ferat  "  —  he  who  wins  the 
JL  palm  should  bear  it,  for  I  certainly  admit, 

Being  but  the  super-navvy,  burdened  with  the  hod, 
vous-savez,  I  Ve  no  wish  to  carry  it. 

I  don't  pose  as  one  who  knows  an  awful  lot  about 
Spinoza,  or  some  other  ancient  seer, 

I  don't  wear  a  sort  of  faintly  dawning,  growing,  super- 
saintly  imitation  of  a  sneer, 

But  withal  I  Ve  a  prolific  knowledge  of  the  scientific 
which  I  Ve  picked  up  here  and  there, 

And  a  little  super-added  from  the  lore  of  those  who 
pad  it  on  the  road  to  anywhere. 

In  my  knockabout  existence,  on  the  line  of  least  re- 
sistance, I  have  plodded  day  by  day, 

And  of  course  from  the  beginning  I  have  done  a  lot  of 
sinning  in  a  very  vulgar  way, 

And  you  '11  find  I  'm  no  exception  in  aesthetical  percep- 
tion of  the  art  that  lies  in  lies, 

So  each  item  of  my  tale  is  to  be  read,  cum  grano  salis, 
as  it  will,  since  ye  are  wise. 

Here  a  man  lays  money  by  him.     My  life's  rule  is 

"  Carpe  diem,"  and  at  last  a  day  will  be 
When  they  '11  gladly  write,  "  Hie  Jacet,"  on  a  marble 

slab  and  place  it  over  him ;  but  as  for  me, 
Everyone  can  do  without  me,  no  one  cares  a  damn 

about  me,  no  one  's  sorry  when  I  slide  — 
But  it  is  a  trifle  funny,  when  he  's  dead,  the  man  of 

money,  someone  's  hellish  satisfied. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  81 

I  am  one  of  those  who  know  it,  it  takes  more  to  make 

a  poet  than  a  mass  of  flowing  hair, 
I  have  tried  the  thing  already,  so  my  friend,  "  Experto 

crede,"  listen  to  me  and  beware. 
Homer  was  a  parish  beggar,   Burns  had  to  measure 

lager,  or  some  other  beverage, 
Poor  old  Villon  had  to  take  a  jemmy  in  his  hand  to 

make  an  ill-begotten  living  wage  — 
What 's  the  good  of  writing  of  the  stars  and  skies  that 

are  above  the  world  you  rhyme  upon  so  well  — 
Rhyme  in  sentimental  gushes  of  your  Angelina's  blushes 

—  if  your  verses  do  not  sell  ? 

I  have  read  Montaigne  and  Dante  in  the  dead  end  or 
the  shanty,  which  you  '11  certainly  agree 

May  be  due  in  greatest  measure  to  the  economic  pres- 
sure and  the  hurried  times  that  be  — 

"  Otium  cum  dignitate,"  for  some  problem  rather 
weighty,  certainly  I  Ve  never  had, 

For  you  '11  find  it  hard  to  learn,  all  the  views  of  Kant 
or  Sterne,  hashing  on  the  barrow  squad  — 

But  apart  from  that  the  fact  is,  if  you  put  it  into  prac- 
tice, put  your  knowledge  into  rhyme, 

Do  it  up  as  this  is  done  up,  spin  it  up  as  this  is  spun 
up,  you  are  scoring  every  time. 

There  are  lots  of  folks  who  clamour  that  the  man  who 
strikes  the  hammer,  cannot,  though  he  likes  to,  rise 

From  the  squalor  of  the  masses  to  the  glory  of  Par- 
nassus, which  I  might  remark  is  lies  — 

'Tis  a  pretty  wide  expansion  from  the  muckpile  to  the 
mansion,  some,  and  many  still  may  rave, 

Yet  they  know  (at  least  they  ought  to)  that  tho'  far 
removed  it 's  not  too  far  from  either  to  the  grave. 


82  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

I  have  taken  oft  the  oddest  little  moment  for  a  modest 
glance  at  Tolstoy  or  at  Taine, 

While  the  boss  was  kicking  hell  up  I  Ve  been  trying  to 
develop  the  resources  of  my  brain, 

Or  when  burst  as  burst  at  nap  I  meditated  quite  un- 
happy on  the  lore  of  ancient  fools, 

On  some  grim  platonic  sages  who  had  never  lost  their 
wages  in  the  fishy  gambling  schools, 

On  the  white  road  leading  through  the  land  of  "  No  one 
wants  you,"  to  the  land  of  "  What  you  should 
have  done," 

I  have  plodded  day  and  daily,  sometimes  woeful,  some- 
times gaily,  brother  of  the  wind  and  sun, 

For    companions    I    have    taken  —  Shakespeare,    Old 

Khayyam,   or   Bacon   and   have   sat   beneath   the 

bough, 
But   no   loaf   and   flask  was   near  me,   so   old   Bacon 

could  n't  cheer  me  —  Shakespeare  had   forgotten 

how  — 
Though  a  lack  of  education  makes  one  lack  appreciation 

of  the  greatest  minds  of  earth, 
Still  you  '11  find  that  ne'er  a  rub  is  harder  borne  than 

lack  of  grub  is,  while  you  estimate  their  worth. 

If  a  man  says,  "  Gee  up,  Neddy,"  in  uncultured  words 

and  ready,  suffer  him  and  let  him  pass, 
"  Proceed,  Edward  "  is  so  toffish  that  it  seems  a  little 

offish,  when  you  say  it  to  an  ass  — 
So  I  hope  my  wisdom  scraps  will  be  esteemed  —  but 

they  perhaps  will  be  regarded  just  as  lies, 
And  remember  that  my  tale  is  to  be  read,  "  cum  grano 

salis,"  as  it  will,  for  you  are  wise. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  83 


BOREAS 

HE  threw  the  pine  tree  in  the  fiord, 
And  down  the  spumous  seas  he  hurled 
The  jagged  iceberg  of  the  north 

To  languish  in  a  stagnant  world, 
And  o'er  the  highway  of  the  skies 
The  clouds  impetuously  whirled. 


Upon  the  bald,  blank  hill  we  met, 
He  blustered   in   insensate  wrath, 

He  caught  and  flung  me  like  a  child, 
He  shook  and  bent  me  like  a  lath, 

Because  I  dared  to  flaunt  his  power, 
Because  I  ventured  on  his  path. 


"  Zephyrus,  Eurus,  Africus, 

Boreas,  Auster,  Aquilo, 
Or  one  or  all,  I  know  not  which, 

And  care  not  though  I  do  not  know, 
Why  use  your  means  to  work  me  harm? 

And  bash  and  birl  and  bend  me  so? 


"  The  flashing  lightnings  pierce  you  through, 

You  bluster  vainly  at  the  hill, 
Ten  thousand  times  you  beat  his  crest, 

Ten  million,  and  he  flaunts  you  still; 
You  are  the  fettered  slave  of  man, 

You  bow  obedient  to  his  will." 


84  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

"  You  —  you  —  unblushingly  you  rave 
Of  all  the  pigmy  deeds  of  men  — 

I  Ve  swept  across  the  clay  that  was 
Or  Paladin  or  Saracen, 

When  naked  Adam  blushed  for  shame 
I  gloried  in  my  starkness  then ! 

"  I  saw  the  might  of  Babylon, 

I  saw  the  verdant  fields  of  Thrace, 

I  marked  the  Romans  in  their  power, 

I  Ve  seen  them  in  their  dire  disgrace  — 

I  am ;  they  were,  and  Caesar  now 
Can't  wipe  the  maggot  off  his  face. 

"  Where  is  the  glory  that  was  Greece? 

Let  Athens'  crumbling  walls  reply  — 
Where  is  the  pride  of  Nineveh, 

Thou  shivering  fool  of  destiny? 
Between  the  earth  and  sky  I  Ve  borne 

The  ashes  that  were  Pompeii ! 

"  What  is  the  pride  you  rave  of  worth  ? 

What  are  the  things  that  you  have  done? 
Are  all  your  deeds  of  deathless  fame 

From  David  to  Napoleon, 
A  musty  coffin  full  of  dust, 

A  grimly  grinning  skeleton? 

"  I  bear  the  scent  of  briar  and  rose 
Through  all  the  lover-longed-for  June, 

I  hurl  the  death-black  clouds  athwart 
The  silvern  oceans  of  the  moon, 

I  am  Siroc  and  Harmattan, 
Solano,  Mistral,  and  Simoon. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  85 

"  Upon  the  proud  Armada  I 

Came  vengeful  and  in  dreadful  shape, 

I  drove  its  ships  through  goaded  seas 
Where  slimy-walled  the  fissures  gape 

In  many  a  gloomy,  deadly  bluff, 
In  many  a  chasmed,  tusk-edged  cape. 

'  The  ringed  and  sworded  buccaneers, 
They  blessed  me  in  the  siren  breeze, 

I  lured  the  Vikings  wild  and  rude 
Across  the  icy  northern  seas, 

And  then  I  laughed  their  faith  to  scorn, 
And  swept  their  laden  argosies. 

"  Beyond  the  reaches  of  the  stars, 

Impearled  byways  of  the  night, 
In  dark  abyssmal  zarahs,  far 

I  Ve  ventured  on  my  endless  flight, 
Beyond  the  thrones  of  gods  unknown, 

And  margents  of  the  infinite." 

He  came  I  wist  not  whence,  nor  where, 

The  bluster  ready  on  his  lip, 
He  fled,  and  left  me  wondering, 

Impotent,  helpless,  from  his  grip  — 
Despite  it  all,  I  felt  with  him 

A  sort  of  roving  fellowship. 


86  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE    NAVVY   CHORUS1 

TWAS  in  the  beginning  of  ages, 
To  the  make  of  the  navvy  there  came 
Work  and  the  lowest  of  wages 

Ever  a  mortal  could  claim, 
Bread,  with  its  age  for  leaven, 

Rows,  and  the  prison  cell, 
Few  of  the  gifts  of  heaven, 

And  most  of  the  vices  of  hell, 
Time,  and  dislike  to  do  it, 

Love,  for  the  wine  when  red, 
And  a  bibulous  leaning  to  it 

Despite  what  the  sages  said. 

And  the  demons  took  in  hand 

Moleskin,  leather,  and  clay, 
Oaths  embryonic  and 

A  longing  for  Saturday, 
Kneestraps  and  blood  and  flesh, 

A  chest  exceedingly  stout, 
A  soul  —  ( which  is  a  ques- 
tion open  to  many  a  doubt), 
And  fashioned  with  pick  and  shovel, 

And  shapened  in  mire  and  mud, 
With  life  of  the  road  and  hovel, 

And  death  of  the  line  or  hod, 
With  fury  and  frenzy  and  fear 

That  his  strength  might  endure  for  a  span 
From  birth,  through  beer  to  bier, 

The  link  'twixt  the  ape  and  the  man. 

Cp.  Swinburne.    Atalanta  in  Calydon,  Shepherd's  Chorus. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  87 

They  gave  him  a  will  to  strive 

And  earn  the  pittance  which 
Can  barely  keep  him  alive 

To  slave  in  the  dirty  ditch  — 
Poorhouse  and  prison  they  wrought, 

So  he  might  enter  therein 
When  idleness  fell  his  lot 

Or  poverty  led  to  sin. 
They  have  given  him  transient  joys, 

They  have  given  him  space  for  delight, 
The  model,  its  riot  and  noise, 

And  night,  and  the  fleas  of  the  night, 
The  jeer  of  the  better  dressed  neighbour, 

And  curses  to  every  breath, 
Labour,  and  dodging  of  labour, 

Foreknowledge  of  sudden  death  — 
Foredoomed  to  go  to  the  devil, 

He  carries  a  swearing  gift.1 
His  life  is  a  path  of  evil 

Between  a  shift  and  a  shift. 

1  Swearing  is  not  a  habit  but  a  gift.  —  From  the  Diary  of 
Moleskin  Joe. 


88  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


TWENTY-ONE 

We  spend  our  years  as  a  tale  that  is  told  badly.  —  From 
Moleskin  Joe's  Diary. 

DOSSING  it  here  in  the  model,  dreary,  bedraggled, 
dry, 
They  're  cooking  their  grub  on  the  hot-plate,  and   I 

have  got  none  to  fry, 
But  still  there  's  a  bed  for  twopence,  so  I  '11  go  to  sleep 

if  I  can, 
Go  a  boy  to  my  slumber  and  rise  to-morrow  a  man. 

Twenty  and  one  to-morrow,  twenty  and  one  and  not 
A  cent  for  the  weary  years  that  with  shovel  and  bar 

I  've  wrought  — 
Out  on  my  own  since  childhood,  down  on  my  luck 

since  birth, 
I  who  belong  to  the  holiest  civilized  land  on  earth. 

I  've  done  my  graft  on  the  dead  line,  where  the  man 

with  the  muck-rake  is, 
Where  the  model  smells  I  have  dossed  it  in  this  woeful 

world  of  His, 
While  others  were  spending  their  springtime  learning 

to  please  and  pray, 
I  Ve  fought  for  my  right  of  living  my  own  particular 

way. 

Oft  I  put  cash  to  the  bankers,  banked  it  and  lost  till 

broke, 
Watching  it  tanner  by  tanner  pass  to  the  sharper's  poke, 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  89 

And  many  a  night  in  the  hovel  brag  was  the  game  we 

played, 
When  I  who  was  versed  in  the  shovel  fell  to  a  heavy 

spade. 

Horses  ran  on  the  race  course  and  won  as  a  matter  of 

course  — 

I  Ve  lost  a  tribe  of  money  backing  the  other  horse. 
Beer,  the  hope  of  the  dead-line!  beer,  the  joy  of  the 

soul! 
Why  would  I  pine  and  worry  when  beer  can  make  me 

whole  ? x 

And  money  is  round  to  go  round.     Horses  and  wine, 

and  yes, 

Women  are  fond  of  finery,  women  are  fond  of  dress  — 
Oh,  pretty  as  girls  are  pretty,  usual  hair  and  eyes, 
Golden  and  blue,  etcetera,  choke  full  of  smiles  and  sighs. 

Eyes  of  a  luring  siren,  a  hell  of  a  blarneying  tongue, 
Old  are  the  arts  of  women,  and  I  was  so  very  young, 
Another  came  round  to  woo  her,  and  sudden  she  took 

to  it, 
I  hugged  a  delusion  in  hairpins,  got  done  like  a  frog 

on  the  spit. 

Seven  years  on  the  muck-pile  —  God,  but  I  'm  feeling 

sick! 
Sick  of  the  slush  and  the  shovel,  sick  of  the  hammer 

and  pick, 
Labour    endless    and    thankless,    labour    that 's    never 

done  — 
Is  it  sinful  to  doubt  of  Heaven  at  penniless  twenty-one? 

1  Let  him  drink  and  forget  his  poverty.  —  Prov.  xixi.,  7. 


go  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Not  the  price  of  a  schooner,  and,  Lord,  but  I  'm  feeling 

dry; 
They  're  grubbing  it  up  on  the  hot-plate,  but  I  Ve  got 

nothing  to  fry  — 
Still  I  can  doss  on  twopence,  and  I  '11  go  to  sleep  if 

I  can  — 
Go  a  boy  to  my  slumber  and  rise  to-morrow  a  man! 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  91 


THE   WATERS 

PLACID  it  lies  as  death  and  passionless  as  the  grave, 
With  the  pallid  moonbeams  flung  like  corpse-lights 
o'er  its  wave, 

Stuck  in  the  hunch-backed  hill,  sluggish,  silent,  apart, 
Brooding  in  durance  vile,  sad  in  its  inmost  heart, 
Whimpering  around  the  face,  the  sluice  and  the  hard- 
fast  wall, 
The   great   dam   slumbers   alone,    sore  of   its   endless 

thrall  — 

Down  at  the  slimy  base  men  toil  in  the  dreary  pit, 
Under  the  shadow  of  night,  cowering  under  it. 

Freed  from  their  prison  walls,  glad  from  the  pent-up 

place, 
Down  the  trough  of  the  hill  streamlets  on  streamlets 

race 

Mad  with  the  joy  they  feel,  full  of  a  wild  desire, 
Springing  from  ledge  to  ledge  in  molten  silvery  fire. 

One  by  one  they  rise,  the  makeshift,  rough-cast  huts, 
Where  the  knoll  across  the  run  of  the  little  waters  juts, 
Here   by   the   hot-plate's   glow   the   shivering,   shabby 

tramp 
Spells  out  the  "  Betting  News "  in  the  glare  of  the 

naphtha  lamp, 

One  man  handles  his  gold,  another  writes  to  his  love, 
In  the  reeking  gloomy  hut  in  the  shade  of  the  dam 

above, 


92  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

A  dozen  crowd  to  the  school,  watching  the  gamblers 
play  — 


A  crash  on  the  face  of  the  hill,  and  the  maddened  dam 
gives  way! 

A  swirl,  and  the  walls  go  down,  the  walls  and  the 

watchers  both, 
A  screech  as  the  pirders  jamb  —  a  prayer  that  is  half 

an  oath; 

The  sluggish  sand-hole  spews,  swallows  and  spews  again, 
The  cesspool  fills  and  chokes  the  throat  of  the  sated 

drain. 

The  flood  breaks  over  the  wall,  foaming  in  ecstasy, 
The  black  mud  scurries  before  as  it  shivers  the  sluices 

free, 

The  mountain  shrubs  uptorn,  effortless  share  its  path, 
It  madly  whirls  on  the  bend  in  all  its  riotous  wrath. 

"Winning!   a  running  flush  —  Christ!  has  the  dam 

gone  loose  I " 
The    tramp    gets    up    with    a    curse,    grasping    his 

"Betting  News," 

The  gamblers  gather  their  stakes,  curious,  undismayed, 
The  miser  grabs  at  his  wealth,  the  lover  rises  afraid, 
The  bulging  wall  breaks  in,  the  roof  falls  through  at 

a  blow, 
A  moment  to  think  of  a  prayer,  and  breathe  it  before 

they  go  — 
A  moment,  and  then  the  flood  reels  through  the  broken 

wall, 
Caught  like  fleas  in  the  fire,  they  splutter  and  choke 

and  fall  — 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  93 

Down  the  face  of  the  hill,  the  waters  roar  as  they 

spread, 
Bearing  in  braggart  glee  their  freight  of  unshriven  dead. 

They  builded  a  wall  of  stone  with  cunning,  patience  and 

skill, 

And  the  waters  sulked  behind  brooding  on  every  ill, 
Till  their  pent-up  rage  broke  forth  on  the  men  who 

curbed  their  will. 


94  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE   BALLAD   OF  THE   LONG   DAM 

TWAS  on  the  day  the  Dam  gave  way,  I  mind  it 
awfully  well, 
Moleskin  Joe  and  Carroty  Dan  had  a  row  about  Riley's 

gel  — 
Good  for  a  chew !    Well,  seeing  it 's  you,  I  think  I  '11 

yarn  it  out ;  • 

Just  turn  your  eye  on  that  wall  hard  by,  and  see  is  the 
boss  about. 

Wai,  first  let  me  tell  how  Riley's  gel  was  pretty  as 
women  go, 

And  whiles  she  went  out  with  Carroty  Dan,  and  whiles 
she  went  out  with  Joe, 

The  way  of  a  man  with  a  maid,  't  is  said,  is  strange, 
and  it 's  scripture  true, 

But  stranger  by  far  you  '11  find  they  are,  the  wonder- 
ful ways  of  two. 

Day  in  and  out  it  was  fight  about,  night  after  night 
the  same, 

And  they  batter  it  here,  a  trifle  queer,  as  there  ain't 
no  rules  in  the  game, 

A  throw  or  a  grip,  a  kick  or  a  trip,  no  wool-padded, 
kid-gloved  play 

You  can  go  for  your  man  in  any  style  your  own  pe- 
culiar way. 

'T  was  on  the  day  the  Long  Dam  burst,  Moleskin  he 
bummed  his  sub. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  95 

And  went  and  got  boozed  as  he  often  did  down  at  the 

nearest  pub, 
Primed  to  the  neck  he  weltered  back,  and  sought  out 

Carroty  D., 
And  the  rest  of  us  quickly  formed  a  ring  for  the  fight 

that  we  knew  would  be. 

'T  was  a  fight  and  a  half  that  blessed  day,  and  as  hard 

as  ever  I  saw, 
Moleskin  Joe  had  the  track  of  a  blow  of  a  shoe  on  his 

bearded  jaw, 
Carroty  Dan  had  some  teeth  bunged  out,  and  his  eyes 

bunged  up  as  well, 
When  some  one  shouted,  "  The  Long  Dam  's  burst, 

slide  like  the  very  hell !  " 

We  heard  the  piles  in  the  breastwork  creek,  break  like 

a  twig  and  fall, 

We  saw  the  riotous  water  crash  over  the  broken  wall, 
The  roots  and  the  furze  and  the  rocks  uphurled,  go 

like  a  wash  of  snow, 
Then  sudden  I  minded  of  Riley's  gel  alone  in  the  hut 

below  — 

Alone  in  the  path  of  the  loosened  flood.  ...  I  ran 
like  the  very  wind, 

With  hurl  and  groan,  by  hollow  and  stone,  I  heard  it 
breaking  behind, 

I  heard  it  urge  its  curling  surge  to  the  moan  of  the 
failing  stay, 

And  charge  the  banks  in  endless  ranks  forcing  its  head- 
strong way. 

And  still  the  waters  vomited  forth,  on  cabin  and  copse 
and  bent, 


96  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

And  still  on  my  errand  lightning-winged  over  the  ridge 

I  went  — 
How  I  got  saved,  and  how  we  were  saved,  is  more  than 

I  'm  fit  to  tell, 
But  I  mind  of  beating  it  by  a  neck  along  with  old 

Riley's  gel. 

That  is  the  tale.  'T  is  a  dirty  job,  and  ours  is  a  rotten 
trade, 

It  takes  a  while  to  gather  a  pile  with  the  help  of  a 
shovel  and  spade  — 

There 's  Moleskin  there  a-shovelling  dirt,  and  Car- 
roty with  a  hod, 

And  Riley's  daughter  's  married  to  me  —  honest,  so  help 
me  God. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  97 

"HELL!" 

(McSurly's  Bar,  1911.) 

COME  gather,  boys,  together  and  we  '11  gulp  a  cup 
to  cheer  us, 

Tho'  the  night  is  slinking  past,  let  us  be  blythe, 
We  have  done  our  graft  and  stuck  it,  boys,  though 

death  was  ever  near  us 
All  the  way  from  Kinlochleven  to  Rosyth. 
We   have   wrought   in   all   the   wide   world's  outside 

reaches, 

And  you  '11  never  find  us  chickens  at  our  work ; 
We  have  clinched  with  toil  and  terror,  and  have  mated 

woe  and  error  — 
'T  was  up  to  us,  and,  boys,  we  did  n't  shirk. 

But  't  was  hell  —  pure  hell  —  the  while  it  lasted, 

And  cursed  little  wages  for  the  pain, 
But  't  was  up  to  us  to  do  it,  and  by  Gripes  we  managed 
thro'  it, 

And  to-morrow  — it  will  be  the  same  again. 

Do  you  mind  the  nights  we  laboured,  boys,  together, 

Spread-eagled  at  our  travail  on  the  joists; 
With   the   pulley   wheels  a-turning   and   the   naphtha 
lamps  a-burning, 

And  the  mortar  crawling  upward  on  the  hoists, 
While  our  hammers  clanked  like  blazes  on  the  facing 

Where  the  trestles  shook  and  staggered  as  we  struck, 
While  the  derricks  on  their  pivots  strained  and  broke 
the  crank-wheel  rivets 

As  the  shattered  jib  sank  heavy  in  the  muck. 


98  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

It  was  hell  —  pure  hell  —  from  start  to  finish, 
And  when  it 's  done,  our  labour  will  atone, 

For  all  we  did  in  strife  and  wrong  the  wild  and  erring 

life  along  — 
Of  us,  who  know  the  hell  of  it  alone. 

Do  you  mind  the  nights  we  fought,  and  drank  and 

lusted 
When  the  wild  red  blood  was  up  and  sense  was 

gone, 
There  is  much  we  can  discuss  about,  and  plenty  too  to 

curse  about, 

The  brutal  lusts  that  led  forever  on. 
How  we  wooed  the  bright-eyed  women  of  the  gutter, 
How  we  squared  our  many  quarrels  with  our  fists, 
When   't  was   "  Rush   the   blessed   shack   again,"   and 

"  Strike  the  beggar  back  again," 
And  "  If  your  man  is  clinching,  break  his  wrists." 

But  't  was  hell  —  pure  hell  —  the  way  we  did  it. 

It  was  —  "  Up  and  burst  your  fellow  if  you  can,"  — 
The  maids  we  used  to  walk  about,  the  things  we  used 
to  talk  about, 

Are  those  which  make  a  devil  of  a  man. 

So  drink  to  what  we  '11  do,  and  what  we  Ve  finished, 

We  '11  spend  the  money  wildly  as  we  wrought ; 
Let  pious  people  chatter,  why  to  them  it  does  n't  matter 

If  we  drop  below  the  quarry  face  or  not. 
But  they  talk  a  little  rot  about  our  morals, 

And  rave  a  little  cant  about  our  shame, 
But,  boys,  they  do  not  know  of  it,  the  trebly  cursed 
woe  of  it, 

'T  is  we  who  know,  the  players  in  the  game. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  99 

And  't  is  hell  —  pure  hell  —  and  we  have  seen  it, 
Our  comrades  dropping  wildly  off  the  slips, 

When  outworks  broke  to  fall  apart,  when  landslides 

shoved  the  wall  apart, 
They  died  like  men,  with  curses  on  their  lips. 

The  lives  that  snapped  in  death,  sure  they  '11  remind  us 

Of  the  sorrow  striking  fiercely  to  the  core, 
The  endless  toil  before  us,  the  nameless  graves  behind 
us, 

Where  our  stricken  comrades  perished  by  the  score. 
These  are  the  little  facts  that  make  us  brutal, 

The  things  that  make  us  curse  above  our  breath, 
The    furious    fight    infernal,    that    is    ours    to    wage 
eternal  — 

The  tragedy  more  horrible  than  death. 

But  it  is  n't  in  our  power,  my  boys,  to  mend  it, 
So  we  '11  face  it  to  the  final  with  a  curse ; 

But  it 's  hell  —  pure  hell  —  until  it 's  ended. 

And  ended  —  well  —  it  —  can  —  be  —  nothing  — 
worse. 


IOO 


THE   CONGER   EEL 

THE  waters  dance  on  the  ocean  crest,  or  swirl  in 
the  cyclone's  breath, 
But  down  below  where  the  divers  go,  they  sullenly 

sleep  in  death, 
Where  the  slime  is  holding  the  cutter's  stays,  where 

the  sailors'  bones,  are  white, 
Where  the  phantoms  sweep  through  the  eerie  deep  in 

realms  of  endless  night, 
'T  is  there  it  holds  its  sway  supine,  and  plaits  its  every 

reel, 
The  silent,  sibilant,  sombre,  sinuous,  stealthy  Conger 

eel, 

The  silky  Conger  eel,  the  solemn-eyed  Conger  eel  — 
It   circles  by  where   the   dead   men   lie,   the   spectral 

Conger  eel. 


The  devil  fish,  grim  in  its  cavern  dim,  a  sinister  siren 
lies, 

And  the  shark  will  seize  on  its  frightened  prey  where 
the  spumous  surges  rise, 

The  dolphin  may  play  in  its  riotous  way  where  the 
waters  are  calm  and  slow, 

The  whale  may  spout  like  a  geyser  out  by  the  ice  of  an 
Arctic  floe, 

But  down  a  hundred  fathoms  or  more  below  the  lance- 
edged  keel, 

It  slily  slides,  'neath  the  shifty  tides,  the  sensuous  Con- 
ger eel, 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  101 

The  lily-soft  Conger  eel,  the  green-eyed  Conger  eel, 
It  grovels  in  grime  and  the  stagnant  slime,  the  hideous 
Conger  eel. 

And  there  in  its  sluggish  realms  of  woe  it  has  reigned 

for  unnumbered  years. 
It  feasted  of  old  on  the  vikings  bold,  and  the  Spanish 

buccaneers, 
And  kings  and  the  sons  of  kings  have  gone  to  lie  on  its 

banquet  board, 
And  many  a  lady  young  and  fair  from  the  arms  of  her 

drowning  lord  — 
But  down  below  no  blush  of  shame  comes  to  the  lips 

that  steal 
The   kisses  soft   from   the  lady   fair;    the   passionless 

Conger  eel 

The  cynical  Conger  eel,  carnivorous  Conger  eel, 
May  lie  on  the  breast  of  the  maiden  chaste  and  never 

a  tremor  feel  — 
That  vampire  Conger  eel. 


IO2  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


BACK   FROM    KINLOCHLEVEN 

And  the  place  that  knew  him,  knows  him  no  more. 

THE  waterworks  are  finished  and  the  boys  have 
jacked  the  shovel, 
See,  the  concrete  board  deserted,  for  the  barrow  squad 

is  gone, 
The  gambling  school  is  bursted,  there  is  silence  in  the 

hovel, 
For  the  lads  are  sliding  townwards  and  are  padding 

it  since  dawn. 
Pinched  and  pallid  are  their  faces  from  their  graft  in 

God-shunned  places, 

Tortured,  twisted  up  their  frames  are,  slow  and  lum- 
bering their  gait, 
But  unto  their  hopeful  dreaming  comes  the  town  with 

lights  a-gleaming, 

Where  the  bar-men  add  more  water,  and  the  shame- 
less women  wait. 


Eighteen  months  of  day  shift,  night  shift,  easy,  slavish, 

long  or  light  shift, 
Anchorites  on  musty  bacon,  crusty  bread,  and  evil 

tea, 
Sweated  through  the  Summer  till  grim  Winter  came  a 

hoary  pilgrim, 

Chasing    from    the    meagre    blanket    the    familiar, 
flighty  flea.1 

1  The  wicked  flea,  that  all  men  pursueth.  —  MOLES  KIN  JOE. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  103 

Then  the  days  when  through   the  cutting  came   the 

death-white  snowflakes  drifting, 
When   the   bar   was   chilled    and   frosted,   and   the 

jumper  seared  like  hell, 
When  the  hammer  shook  uncertain  in  the  grimy  hands 

uplifting, 

And  the  chisel  bounced  uncanny  'neath  the  listless 
strokes  that  fell. 


But  to  Him  give  thanks  't  is  over  and  the  city  fills  the 

distance, 
On  the  line  of  least  resistance  they  are  coming  sure 

but  slow, 

How  they  wait  the  trull  and  harlot,  jail-bird,  vaga- 
bond and  varlet, 
For  there  's  many  a  bob  to  squander  and  the  city 

ravens  know! 
Parasites  from  pub  and  alley  welcome  in  the  grimed 

and  greasy, 
Gather  round  with  wail  and  plaudit,  eager  for  their 

dough  and  gin, 
They  are  coming  from  the  muck-pile  and  they  mean  to 

take  it  easy, 

They  have  pals  to  share  their  joy  and  incidentally 
their  tin. 


They  are  tabid  and  outworn,  unpresentable,  unshorn, 

Occupants  of  many  a  model,  wooers  of  the  harridan, 

Workers  of  the  wildernesses,   dressing  as  the  savage 

dresses, 
Crawling   in   the   rear   of   progress,    following   the 

march  of  man. 

Where  grim  nature  reigneth  lonely  over  gelid  places, 
only 


IO4  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Known  to  death  and  desolation,  they  have  roughed 

it  long  and  hard, 
Where  the  chronic  river  wallows  in  the  refuse  of  the 

hollows, 
And  the  thunderbolt  is  resting  on  the  mountain  tops 

it  scarred. 

But  't  is  over  for  the  moment,  and  the  heel-end  of 

creation 
Vomits  back  the  men  who  roughed  it  to  the  town 

that  sent  them  forth, 
They  who  face  the  death  it  threatened  with  a  grim 

determination, 
They  who  wrestled  with  the  slayer  incarnated  in 

the  North  — 
Go  and  see  them  primed  with  lager,  drain  them  of 

the  coppers  sought  for 
In  the  depths  of  desolation,  in  the  byways  of  the 

beast, 
Go  and  bum  them  of  the  ha'pence  that  like  maniacs 

they  wrought  for, 

For  they  bear  the  famine  bravely,   but  can  never 
stand  the  feast. 

They  are  coming  to  the  city,   soon  you  '11  see  their 

rants  and  quarrels, 
See  them  marching  off  to  prison,  see  them  drinking 

day  by  day, 
In  the  dead  end  of  their  labours  they  forgot  your  code 

of  morals, 

They  are  ne'er  intoxicated  in  the  super-saintly  way. 
You  will  know  them  by  their   reeking  shag,   you  '11 
know  their  way  of  speaking, 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  105 

You  can   spot   them   by   their  moleskins   and   their 

bluchers  battered  down, 

They    are    wild,    uncultivated,    maybe    rather    under- 
rated — 

But  at  any  rate  you  '11  know  them  by  their  curses 
when  in  town. 


io6  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE    DEATH    OF   MOLESKIN 

Here  lies  the  remains  of  John  Todd, 
Not  dead,  but  drunk,  by  God! 

— MOLESKIN. 

JOE  is  dead?    Of  course  he  is, 
Dead  as  any  nail  can  be, 
Look  upon  that  face  of  his  — 

See,  if  you  are  sober,  see 
The  unutterable  peace 

Stamped  upon  his  countenance  — 
See,  and  let  your  prattle  cease, 
Give  the  dead  man  half  a  chance. 

Joe  is  dead  ?    Of  course  he  's  dead ; 

Hair  dishevelled  on  his  brow, 
Lay  him  on  the  model  bed, 

Nought  avails  to  wake  him  now. 
See,  the  jar  is  almost  full  — 

Look,  I  Ve  piles  and  piles  of  dough  — 
Moleskin,  have  another  pull. 

Not  an  answer.     Poor  —  old  —  Joe. 

Give  the  fallen  man  his  due, 

He  was  one  that  always  could 
Take  a  modest  pint  or  two, 

Just  as  any  navvy  should, 
Do  a  week  or  two  in  jile, 

Strike  a  bargain  with  a  fence, 
Fight  his  man  in  perfect  style, 

Play  the  game,  and  stump  the  pence. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  107 

Poor  old  Joe  is  lying  dead 

Drunk  as  e'er  a  man  can  be, 
Lay  some  lager  near  his  head 

So  when  waking  he  may  see  — 
Softly  let  us  go  to  sleep, 

Be  your  voices  hushed  and  low. 
Hark  his  snoring  loud  and  deep  — 

Peace  be  with  your  slumber,  Joe. 


io8  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


CHOSES   DU   SOIR 

(From  the  French  of  Hugo.) 

HILLY  the  eve,  and  the  silent  mist 
Veils  the  moon  in  a  mystic  haze, 
The  cattle  go  down  by  the  waterways, 
And  the  skyline  glimmers  like  amethyst. 

A  silhouette  on  the  lonely  dune 

The  traveller  shows  twixt  earth  and  sky, 
And  fretfully  cawing  the  rooks  go  by, 

Shrinking  in  fright  from  the  leprous  moon. 

The  witch  sits  down,  a  ghoul  at  her  throat, 
And  over  the  tarn  the  goblins  call, 
The  spider  has  spun  its  web  on  the  wall, 

And  waits  for  its  prey  and  wearies  not. 

This  of  old  was  thy  song,  I  von  — 
The  song  is  living,  the  singer  gone. 

Apart  the  storm-chased  luggers  fly, 

The  straining  mainmast  is  stripped  and  bare, 
And  the  billows  sing  to  the  whirling  air 

A  dirge  for  a  failing  dynasty. 

The  coach  goes  rumbling  along  the  road, 

The  road  that  leads  to  the  wide  world's  end, 
Carrying,  mother  or  wife  or  friend  — 

Pity  the  ones  who  to-night  are  abroad. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  109 

On  the  hillside  lone  the  graveyard  is, 
A  cross,  a  flower,  a  written  stone, 
The  worm  that  crawls  on  the  skeleton, 

And  the  mouldering  lips  that  we  loved  to  kiss. 

The  fire  is  bright  on  the  cottage  hearth, 

The  kettle  sings  in  an  undertone 

A  song  of  joy  that  is  all  its  own, 
And  children  are  full  of  idle  mirth. 


of  old  was  thy  song,  Ivon  — 
Where  is  the  wayward  singer  gone? 


no  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE    SONG   OF   WERNER 

(From  the  German  of  Scheffel.) 

O  ROMAN  maid!   why  do  you  try 
To  win  a  heart  you  cannot  hold 
With  honeyed  word  and  witching  eye? 
For  ah!   the  ancient  fire  is  cold. 

Beyond  the  virgin  Alpine  snow, 

My  lady  sleeps  beside  the  Rhine  — 

Upon  her  grave  three  roses  blow, 

Her  grave  —  who  was  the  love  of  mine. 

O,  maid  of  Rome !  you  cannot  move 

The  heart  that  sorrow  steeped  in  gloom; 

For  me  alone  but  one  to  love, 
My  lady  sleeping  in  the  tomb. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  1 1 1 


THE    SLAVE 

What  mean  ye  that  ye  beat  my  people  into  pieces,  and  grind 
the  faces  of  the  poor?  —  Isai.  iii.,  15. 

THE  olden  chronicles  tell  us  Akbar  the  slave  was 
strong, 
On  the  woes  of  his  brothers  in  bondage  he  brooded  and 

sorrowed  long, 

Akbar,  the  slave  of  Reienos,  scarred  with  the  iron  and 
thong. 


He  toiled  in  the  field  and  forest  and  furrow  early  and 

late, 
Dragging  through  ruts  and  ridges,  with  slouching  and 

servile  gait ; 
But  Akbar  the  slave  was  human,  and  Akbar  the  slave 

could  hate. 


Under   the   goad   of   the   master,   sweating   as  horses 

sweat, 

Scorned  by  the  page  and  lady  appareled  in  satinet, 
The  sinewy  slave  could  suffer,  suffer  and  not  forget. 


When  the  heat  of  the  day  was  over  and  the  tremulous 

stars  looked  wan, 
When  night  hung  low  on  the  turret,  drawbridge  and 

barbican, 
Into  the  darkling  forest  stealthily  stole  a  man. 


H2  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Silent  as  steals  a  panther,  quick  as  a  wolf  on  prowl, 
A  shadow  among  the  shadows,  almost  unseen  by  the 

owl, 
As  the  watch  dog  saw  the  figure  in  awe  it  filled  the 

night  with  its  howl. 


In  a  hut  in  the  depth  of  the  thicket,  rugged,  misshapen, 

rude, 

Akbar  the  slave  of  Reienos  in  the  spiritless  solitude, 
With  the  cleverness  hate  had  given,  fashioned  a  slab 

of  wood. 


The  prong  of  a  graip  for  a  gimlet,  a  sharpened  spade 

for  a  plane, 
He  shapened  it  level  and  specular,  smooth  as  the  shield 

of  a  thane, 
Toiling  alone  in  the  darkness,  filled  with  a  passion 

insane. 


With  withes  of  the  seasoned  willows  he  tied  it  as  firm 

as  steel 
Down  to  the  bench  in  the  dwelling,  filled  with  a  giant's 

zeal, 
Then  made  he  with  maniac  labour  a  grim  and  horrible 

wheel. 


With  the  rim  of  flexible  pinewood,  the  lissome  fir  for 
the  spoke, 

A  groove  and  a  rope  around  it,  a  turning  handle  of 
oak, 

Thus  Akbar  spoke  in  the  darkness,  timing  his  ham- 
mer's stroke  — 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  113 

"  The  brutes  of  the  byres  are  tended,  there  is  food  for 

the  hunting  pack, 
He  has  trampled  the  crumbs  from  his  table,  the  crumbs 

that  my  brothers  lack, 
Reienos  has  tortured  and  lashed  us  —  now  I  will  pay 

him  back. 

"  Lord,  I  have  waited  to  see  Thee  strike  him  down  in 

his  crime, 
I  who  am  nearly  outworn,  whipped  like  a  cur  in  my 

prime, 
Vengeance  is  Thine  it  is  spoken,  but  I  cannot  abide 

Thy  time." 

The  arrogant  Lord  Reienos  strode  through  the  woods 

alone, 
Far    through    the    gloomy    forest    thinking    of    things 

unknown, 
Reienos  the  strong  and   fearless,  hard  of  heart  as  a 

stone. 


As  a  panther  hangs  on  its  quarry,  as  a  vulture  circles 

afar, 

A  sinister  figure  followed,  silent  as  moves  a  star, 
Akbar,  the  grim  avenger,  marked  with  the  sear  and 

the  scar. 


The  rubescent  sun  sank  westward,  tingeing  with  ver- 
meil dyes, 

The  shimmering  leaves  of  the  forest,  the  gentian  dome 
of  the  skies, 

And  showing  the  tigerish  hate  in  the  villein's  passion- 
ate eyes. 


114  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

A  crash  in  the  brake  behind  him,  like  when  a  boar 

breaks  through  — 

Reienos  turned  in  anger,  turned,  and  saw,  and  knew  — 
And  the  slayer  laughed  in  the  silence  for  the  deed  he 

lusted  to  do. 


Laughed   and   laid   hold   of  his  master,   gripped   him 

fiercely  and  strong  — 
Seized  like  a  leaf  in  the  cyclone,  borne  as  a  straw  is 

along, 
Reienos  thought  on  his  Maker,  Akbar  remembered  the 

thong. 


In  the  zest  of  the  whirlwind  foray  Reienos  had  led 

the  way, 
When  the  noise  of  the  shields  and  spears  rang  to  the 

vault  of  day, 
But  death  at  the  hands  of  a  villein  —  Reienos  began 

to  pray. 


Into  the  gloomy  cabin  drear  as  the  pit  of  dread, 
Down  on  the  slab  he  placed  him,  his  hands  above  his 

head, 
Tied  to  the  wheel,  his  body  fastened  with  withe  and 

thread. 


"  Pray  to  heaven  for  mercy  as  your  hours  are  almost 
done, 

The  lowly  slave  at  your  castle  may  look  on  the  mor- 
row's sun, 

But  two  will  pass  ere  it  rises,  and  thou,  Reienos,  art 
one  — 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  115 

"  One,  and  I  am  the  other  —  strung  from  your  castle 

wall  — 
Pray  —  I  have  prayed   for  years  outside  your  lordly 

hall, 
But  God  in  Heaven  was  busy  watching  the  sparrows 

fall." 


Flaxen  pale  the  moonshine  glimmered  on  dune  and 

tree, 

A  groan  came  borne  on  the  breezes,  lone  and  piteously, 
A  wheel  is  turned  in  the  cabin,  a  maniac  laughs  in  glee, 

A  meteor  streaks  the  impearled   dome  with  its  fiery 

light, 
Cluster  on  cluster  they  sparkle  stars  that  are  diamond 

bright, 
Another   turn   in   the  torture,    another   moan   in   the 

night. 

Falling  as  falls  the  spice  flower  adown  the  mane  of  the 

breeze, 

Slowly  the  molten  moonfire  fell  on  the  bearded  trees, 
Where  the   eerie   midnight  vampires  bowed   at   their 

fetishes. 


Borne  in  dismal  cadence,  the  groans  of  the  sufferer 
Sank  away  in  the  silence,  died  on  the  midnight  air, 
And    only    the   grim   avenger   watched    by    the    body 
there. 

They  found  the  slave  in  the  dawning,  beside  the  lord 
of  the  hall, 


n6  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

They  hung  him  in  scorn  and  fury,  high  from  the  castle 

wall, 
The  man  who  wept  for  his  people,  the  man  who  tired 

of  his  thrall. 

Only  an  ancient  story,  fraught  with  its  weight  of  woe, 
Of  the  love  of  a  slave  for  freedom,  and  the  hate  that 

crushed  him  low  — 
Only  an  outworn  story,  now  —  as  in  long  ago. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  117 


A   GEOLOGICAL   NIGHTMARE 

THE  lurid  volcanoes  were  guarding  the  pole, 
The  sinister  flames  reached  the  Northern  star  — 
I  wandered  through  ages  untold  with  my  soul 

And  the  grim  fellowship  of  the  plesiosaur, 
In  the  regions  of  felspar  and  red  syenite, 

Where  the  mammoth  was  romping  in  furious  glee, 
Where  the  ichthyosaur  chased  the  slim  belemnite, 
Through  the  lava-tinged  waves  of  a  Triassic  sea. 


On  the  clubmoss  I  saw  the  wild  dinosaur  feed, 

From  the  primeval  tree  swung  the  anthropoid  ape, 
Through  the  network  of  fern  and  cyad  and  reed 

Crashed    the    long   brontosaur   of   the   cumbersome 

shape ; 
The  grim  armadillo  that  wallowed  in  slime, 

The  lizard  and  serpent  that  flew  in  the  air, 
Looked  weird  in  that  eerie  pre-adamite  time 

'Neath  the  luminous  sun  or  the  stellary  bear. 

But  where  are  they  gone  to,  the  mammoth  and  auk? 

The  dodo  and  dragon  —  say,  where  are  they  gone? 
In  the  Triassic  beds  and  the  Eocene  chalk 

They  have  fallen  asleep  and  are  slumbering  on. 
The  knight  of  the  sickle  has  numbered  their  days, 

And  Nature  embalmed  them  in  shells  and  in  stones, 
And  we  their  descendants  in  boundless  amaze, 

Discuss  them,  or  pore  on  their  fossilized  bones. 


n8 


Thus  we  even  pass  from  the  gentian  dome, 

And  follow  the  trail  of  the  monsters  that  saw 
The  heaven  of  stars  that  ne'er  glimmered  on  Rome, 

Adown  to  the  vale  of  ineffable  awe  — 
We  go  with  the  pallor  of  fear  on  our  face, 

They  went  from  the  fight  with  the  bloodstain  and 

scar, 
And  the  man  and  the  maiden  must  rest  in  the  place 

Where  they  wait  them  the  dragon  and  ichthyosauri 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  119 


THE    PIONEER 

HE  was  a  servant  boy,  and  he 
Married  a  maid  of  his  own  degree, 
Rented  a  plot  of  the  mountain  lands, 
And  faced  the  wild  with  willing  hands, 
Where  the  whortleberry  and  monkshood  grew, 
And  the  night-shade  steeped  in  the  poison  dew. 
The  juniper  covered  the  rocky  ledge, 
The  bramble  grew  to  the  torrent's  edge; 
The  meadow  land  was  rough  and  damp, 
With  here  a  rock  and  there  a  swamp ; 
The  pines  came  flocking  around  his  door; 
The  cold  spring  oozed  through  the  cabin  floor, 
But,  save  for  his  wife,  companionless, 
He  raised  his  hands  to  the  wilderness. 

The  pine  went  down  before  his  axe, 
The  scanty  corn  grew  up  in  his  tracks, 
With  shovel  and  spade  the  mead  was  drained, 
With  weary  labour  the  brook  was  chained, 
With  his  simple  faith,  and  two  men's  power, 
A  giant  he  wrought  through  sun  and  shower, 
And  of  every  yard  he  dared  dispute 
With  the  wild,  it  drove  him  back  a  foot, 
For  its  ways  are  many,  its  strength  is  great, 
And  man  is  conquered  soon  or  late. 

The  woman  died  in  a  twelvemonth's  space, 

And  left  him  alone  in  the  gloomy  place ; 

But  sorrowful,  silent,  yet  unsubdued, 

He  delved  and  drilled  and  hammered  and  hewed, 


I2O  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Clearing  the  brambles,  breaking  the  stones, 
Till  the  fever  set  in  his  aching  bones, 
And  the  jeering  wraith  of  the  wild  in  wrath 
Flung  him  in  scorn  from  out  its  path. 

Then  the  corn  rotted,  the  drain  fell  low, 
Again  the  bramble  began  to  grow, 
The  sapling  grew  by  the  fallen  log, 
And  he  died  in  his  hut  as  dies  a  dog, 
Shivering,  thirsty,  afraid,  alone, 
Unhappy,  uncared  for,  and  unknown.  *  *  * 
This  is  the  story  fraught  with  fear, 
The  tale  of  the  rustic  pioneer. 

After  him  came  the  mine  and  mill, 

A  city  was  built  upon  the  hill  ; 

There  bearded  fools  in  the  council  sat, 

And  jabbered  their  views  upon  this  and  that, 

But  no  one  knew  or  cared  to  hear, 

The  tale  of  the  early  pioneer. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  121 


THE    HOUSE   OF  REST 

UNTO   a  land  unknown  to  me  I  came  on  some 
strange  mission  sent, 
A  lonely  pilgrim  from  the  night  I  wandered  on  a 

wonder  way, 
And  said,  "  I  '11  seek  athrough  the  world  for  rest  and 

unalloyed  content," 

And  sought  beneath  the  frigid  stars,  and  sought  be- 
neath the  fretful  day. 


I  saw  the  House  of  Toil,  and  there  the  people  died  for 

lack  of  bread, 
There  gnawing  hunger  kept  her  rule  relentless  o'er 

the  battered  roof, 
And  in  the  House  of  Love  they  wept  for  spoken  words 

and  words  unsaid  — 

I  gripped  my  staff  in  mute  despair  and  firmly  kept 
myself  aloof. 


The  House  of  Wealth  was  fair  to  see,  all  damascened 

and  diapered, 
But  inside  riot  reigned  supreme,  and  sated  men  had 

blighted  health, 
While  outside  gaunt-eyed  forms  went  by,  and  starving 

children's  cries  were  heard, 

And  godless  ones  with  sinful  souls  crept  in  and  ran- 
sacked it  by  stealth. 


122  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

The  House  of  God  was  passing  grand,  with  moulded 

arch  and  sculptured  door, 
With    picture,    psalter,    pulpit,    pew,    with    printed 

prayer  and  priceless  pyx, 
But  from  within  an  endless  wail  was  wafted  upwards 

evermore, 

And  hair  was  rent  and  sackcloth  worn  beneath  the 
silent  crucifix. 

The  House  of  Azreel  stands  alone,  and  greater  than 

abyssmal  night 
The  gloom  of  it,  and  depth  of  it,  unruffled  by  the 

softest  breath  — 
The  door  is  ope,  I  enter  there,  and  dressed  in  robes  of 

pallid  white, 

I  greet  the  worm,   and  rest  me  in  the   House  of 
Azreel  and  of  Death. 

And  here  where  never  mellow  morn  may  send  a  ray 

of  light  or  bliss, 
Where  never  lingering  winds  are  borne,  where  never 

maiden's  voice  is  heard, 
Afar  from  holiness  and  hate,  from  kindness  and  the 

soulless  kiss, 

I  sleep  content  for  endless  years  and  never  wish  to 
speak  a  word. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  123 


THE   OLD    MEN 

THERE  'S  a  handful  of  meal  in  the  barrel,  and  a 
little  oil  in  the  cruse, 
We  wear  out  our  thin-soled  sandals,  they  tan  for  the 

next  year's  shoes, 
And  whet  their  axe  at  the  grindstone,  while  ours  hangs 

blunt  on  the  wall, 
And  willingly  shapen  the  rooftree,  though  ours  is  ready 

to  fall. 
The  old  fleece  rots  on  the  wether,  the  new  fleece  whirls 

in  the  loom, 
They  weave  the  cloth  for  the  bridal,  we  fashion  the 

shroud  for  the  tomb, 
Who  followed  the  path  as  we  found  it  from  dawn  to 

decline  of  day, 
Till   the   great   world   lies   behind   us,   before  us   the 

lonely  way. 

Our  sons  go  into  the  forest,  our  sons  go  out  to  the 

mead, 
And  labour  with  saw  or  with  sickle,  everyone  unto  his 

need, 
Our  daughters  will  meet  them  at  even,  with  smile  and 

with  simper  and  sigh, 
And  the  love  that  their  mothers  bore  us,  in  days  that 

have  drifted  by; 
On  their  lips  the  red  blood  crimsons,  and  their  golden 

tresses  glow, 
But  we  Ve  seen  the  red  lips  whiten  and  the  tresses  turn 

to  snow. 


124  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

What  makes  us  envy  the  moments  they  snatch  from  the 

swift-winged  fate, 
And  the  fury  that  follows  after,  catching  them  soon  or 

late? 
Some  fierce  inherent  hatred  the  brute  of  the  wilderness 

bore 
As  he  lost  command  of  the  wolfpack  when  young  and 

swift  no  more, 

Some  olden  envious  instinct  the  hoary  chieftain  had 
When  the  reins  of  his  despot  power  passed  to  a  beard- 
less lad; 

Ours  is  the  useless  prattle,  the  solace  of  Solomon, 
When  he  loathed  the  maids  of  his  harem,  and  the  days 

of  his  lusts  were  gone, 
With  the  scorn  of  the  young  to  goad  us,  and  the  doom 

that  dogs  our  feet, 
We  are  the  olden  cynics,  wise  in  our  own  conceit. 

There  's  a  handful  of  meal  in  the  barrel,  and  a  little 

oil  in  the  cruse, 
Which  our  toothless  loves  will  bake  us  —  we  who  are 

little  use  — 
Let  our  sons  go  out  to  the  hunting,  let  our  daughters 

simper  and  smile; 
We  wait  for  the  welcome  summons  —  only    a   little 

while, 
For  we  are  the  useless  old  men,  wrinkled  and  bent  and 

grey, 
With  the  things  we  have  done  behind  us,  before  us 

the  lampless  way; 
We   are   the   useless  old   men  with   faltering,   failing 

breath, 
With  a  stake  in  the  great   Hereafter,  sealed  by  the 

hand  of  Death. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  125 


THE    END 

GAUNT  clouds  are  piled  athwart  the  sky, 
The  cold  wind  soughs  along  the  earth, 
In  hapless  towns  the  people  die, 

The  fires  are  cold  on  every  hearth, 
The  spectral  moon  has  lost  its  light, 

The  shrunken  sun  is  pale  and  wan, 
And  time  is  one  unholy  night  — 
A  night  that  never  knows  a  dawn. 

Forsaken  homes  where  mortals  dwelt 

Are  drear  as  death  and  still  as  Styx, 
The  cloisters  where  the  godly  knelt 

Are  fallen  on  the  crucifix ; 
No  watcher  ponders  on  the  stars, 

Of  life  and  death  no  sages  tell, 
No  soldier  hastens  to  the  wars, 

No  preacher  speaks  of  heaven  or  hell. 

The  fiery  meteors  cross  the  skies, 

And  far  apart  the  Twins  have  gone, 
A  planet  to  the  sacrifice! 

And  Paris  sleeps  with  Babylon. 
A  mighty  race  has  passed  away, 

A  fretful  planet  whirled  in  space  — 
A  pawn  in  time's  unending  play, 

Is  mourning  for  the  mighty  race. 


126  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


"NO    MORE" 

(Written  on  the  evictions  in  Gweedore  on  the  northern  coast  of 
Ireland.) 

^  I^HE  sun  moves  on  its  path  of  light 

A     Across  the  heaven's  floor, 
The  welkin  beams  above  the  night  — 
But  they  return  no  more. 

The  mountains  sentinel  the  glen 

And  all  its  emerald  store, 
The  meadow,  copse  wood,  and  the  fen  — 

But  they  return  no  more. 

The  honeysuckle  in  the  vale 

Was  ne'er  so  fair  before, 
The  roses  scent  the  evening  gale  — 

But  they  return  no  more. 

The  watchdog,  waiting  hollow-eyed 

Before  the  cabin  door, 
No  more  will  be  the  peasant's  pride, 

For  they  return  no  more. 

For  ever  stilled  the  evening  latch, 

The  peat  fire's  glow  is  o'er, 
The  ivy  fattens  on  the  thatch, 

For  they  return  no  more. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  127 

The  ocean  twines  its  throbbing  arms 

Around  the  silent  shore, 
Or  raises  loud  its  wild  alarums  — 

But  they  return  no  more. 

Upon  the  beach  the  lugger  lies 

Beside  the  useless  oar, 
No  more  'twill  bear  the  fisher's  prize, 

Now  they  return  no  more. 

Where  once  the  weaver  plied  his  trade 

The  shuttle's  flight  is  o'er, 
The  ditch  now  holds  the  rotted  spade, 

And  they  return  no  more. 

Not  now  is  heard  the  evening  chime, 

The  reapers'  song  is  o'er, 
They  wander  weary  in  a  clime 

From  which  they  come  no  more. 

Sad,  sad,  thy  tale,  land  of  my  birth, 

Bear  witness  wild  Gweedore, 
Thy  children  banished  o'er  the  earth, 

And  they  return  no  more. 


128  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


SALVE,    REX   DEI   GRACIA! 

This  may  have  happened  in  new-world  times, 

Or  yet  in  the  ages  of  long  ago, 
I  am  a  writer  writing  my  rhymes, 

And  how  on  earth  should  a  rhymer  know! 

THERE  lived  a  man  who  was  wise  and  old, 
And  the  old  are  wise,  we  must  all  agree, 
And  the  things  he  had  learned  were  manifold, 
For  he  ate  the  fruit  of  the  knowledge  tree. 
But  lo,  and  behold  you!    there  came  to  him, 
As  he  walked  abroad  in  the  city  square, 
Scholar  and  merchant  and  soldier  grim, 
Who  making  obeisance  spoke  him  fair :  — 

"  We  come,  from  the  people  of  many  a  land, 
Unworthy  to  press  your  garment  hem  — 
To  crown  thee  here,  as  is  their  command, 
For  the  sake  of  the  good  you  have  done  for  them. 
We  come  from  the  peoples  of  town  on  town, 
The  people,  who  know  your  power  and  worth, 
And  they  bade  us  bring  you  a  golden  crown 
And  crown  you  —  the  greatest  man  on  earth." 

"  We  slept,  and  you  toiled  thro'  the  lee-long  night, 
You  saw  us  unmeet,  and  made  us  fit." 
But  the  brow  of  the  seer  grew  black  as  night ; 
And  he  questioned — "What  merit  has  come  of  it? 
I  have  planned  the  ships  that  ye  sail  afar, 
And  taught  you  to  sharpen  the  arrow-head; 
But  your  ships  are  battered  in  shiftless  war, 
And  your  brothers'  blood  on  the  arrow  is  red. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  129 

"  I  have  taught  you  to  build  your  houses  fine ; 
But  the  beggars  grovel  before  the  door, 
And  you  house  your  servants  amongst  the  swine, 
And  boast  your  pride  to  the  starving  poor. 
Now  do  you  come  with  cant  and  crown 
To  crown  me  greatest  of  all  mankind! 
But,  follow  me  far  from  the  crowded  town, 
I  '11  shew  you  the  man  you  come  to  find !  " 

They  followed  him,  far  from  the  city  square, 

Soldier  and  scholar  in  cloak  and  hood. 

They  came  to  a  village,  the  pump  and  there 

Gaping  the  village  idiot  stood. 

Untutored,  unmeet  to  labour  or  plan, 

A  brainless,  brutish  and  simple  thing  — 

But  the  seer  outspoke  —  "  Behold  the  man 

You  claim  as  Monarch !    Go,  crown  him  King !  " 

"  King!  "  said  the  scholar,  and  laughed  his  mirth. 

"  King!  "  said  the  soldier,  and  loudly  swore. 

"  Though  long  we  have  bowed  to  your  power  and 

worth, 

Henceforth  we  scoff  at  your  simple  lore. 
The  good  he  has  done,  we  would  wish  to  hear 
In  town  or  in  country,  in  forge  or  farm." 
"  Oh,  little,  perchance,"  replied  the  seer, 
"  But  he  never  has  done  a  mortal  harm." 

So  the  village  idiot  was  crowned  as  King. 
'T  is  strange,  and  in  sooth  it  may  be  so. 
I  am  a  singer  trying  to  sing, 
And  how  on  earth  should  a  singer  know  ? 


130  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


DOWN   ON   THE   DEAD    END 

(On  tramp,  1909.) 

I'VE  toiled  at  the  end  of  creation,  stripped  to  the 
trousers  and  shirt, 
I  Ve  hashed  like  the  very  damnation  and  squandered 

my  money  like  dirt, 
And  jobs  that  are  nameless  I  Ve  wrought  in,  and  deeds 

that  are  shameless  I  Ve  done, 

And  fights  without  number  I  Ve  fought  in,  and  paid 
like  the  deuce  for  my  fun. 


I  Ve  piled  up  the  slush  in  the  bucket,  down  to  my 

knees  in  the  drift, 
Wet  till  I  felt  I.  must  chuck  it,  or  drop  like  a  mule  at 

my  shift, 
In  dreary  and  desolate  places,  with  the  boss  standing 

glowering  by 
At  his  men  and  their  fungous-white  faces,  I  Ve  felt  as 

if  ready  to  die. 


Drink,  and  I  Ve  tried  to  keep  from  it,  women  and 

cards  —  't  was  the  same, 
The  dog  will  return  to  his  vomit,  the  devil  is  boss  of 

the  game, 
The  red  of  the  wine  cup  has  hidden  the  adders  with 

poisonous  teeth, 
The  sunlight  is  bright  on  the  midden,  with  the  rot  of 

the  wide  world  beneath. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  131 

Disheartened,  discarded,  disgusted,  I  'm  down  on  the 
dead-line  once  more, 

Beggared,  benighted  and  bursted,  the  jail  or  the  work- 
house before  — 

Well,  life  had  its  trouble  and  worry,  the  Fates  have 
been  devilish  hard, 

My  chances  went  by  in  a  hurry,  I  plunged  on  the  rot- 
tenest  card. 

I  have  n't  a  pipe-full  of  Carroll's  to  cheer  me  while 

tramping  it  out, 
And  getting  because  of  my  morals  a  hell  of  a  knocking 

about, 
—  Well!  life  was  a  foolhardy  gamble  and  down  in  its 

by-ways  I  strove, 
And  perhaps  in  the  ultimate  scramble  I  '11  corner  a 

shakedown  above. 


132  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


RUN    DOWN 

IN  the  grim  dead  end  he  lies,  with  passionless  filmy 
eyes, 

English  Ned,  with  a  hole  in  his  head, 
Staring  up  at  the  skies. 

The  engine  driver  swore  as  often  he  swore  before  — 

"  I  whistled  him  back  from  the  flamin'  track, 
An'  I  could  n't  do  no  more." 

The    gaffer    spoke    through    the    'phone    "  Platelayer 

Seventy-one 

Got  killed  to-day  on  the  six-foot  way, 
By  a  goods  on  the  city  run. 

"  English  Ned  was  his  name, 
No  one  knows  whence  he  came, 
He  did  n't  take  mind-  of  the  road  behind 
And  none  of  us  is  to  blame." 

They  turned  the  slag  in  the  bed 
To  cover  the  clotted  red, 
Washed  the  joints  and  the  crimsoned  points, 
And  buried  poor  English  Ned. 

In  the  drear  dead  end  he.  lies, 
With  the  earth,  across  his  eyes, 

And  a  stone  to  say, 

How  he  passed  away 
To  a  shift  beyond  the  skies. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  133 


WITH   THE    BREAKDOWN    SQUAD 

"  Wreck  of  the  city  express,  sir" 
The  newspaper  sellers  yell, 

The  people  are  buying,  buying, 
My!   don't  the  papers  sell, 

And  the  publishers  say  in  their  usual  way 
"Business  is  doing  well" 


A  TANNER  down  on  a  three  spot, 
Losing  again,  he  Mowed !  " 
"  Give  me  a  fill  of  tobacco." 

"  Here,  a  one  that  I  owed." 

"  Losing  again  with  —  Heavens! 

A  passenger  off  the  road !  " 


Seventy-nine  was  the  engine, 

Speediest  on  the  line  — 
We  rushed  to  the  van  like  demons 

And  waited  the  signal  sign, 
Then  flashing  afar  like  a  scymitar 

Went  the  flame  of  seventy-nine. 

Out  in  the  night  as  phantoms, 
Out  to  the  wreck  we  steal, 

Horror  urging  our  heart-beats, 
Feeling  as  sinners  feel  — 

The  rails  like  souls  in  torment 
Whimpered  beneath  the  wheel. 


134  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

Above  us  the  moon  went  sailing 

White  as  the  face  of  death, 
Watching  the  engine  gliding 

Over  the  world  beneath, 
While  we  pulled  at  our  pipes  in  silence, 

And  heard  our  every  breath. 

The  engine  fire  is  cleaving 

A  path  to  the  stars  on  high  — 
The  cirrus  clouds  in  the  heaven 

Like  burial  shrouds  go  by, 
Sent  from  the  dim  hereafter 

For  men  and  women  who  die. 

In  the  gaunt  and  gelid  cutting 

Ghouls  of  the  darkness  brood, 
A  lone,  belated  raven 

Cries  through  the  solitude, 
And  the  signals  rise  to  danger 

Redder  than  human  blood. 

A  crash  of  brakes  in  the  darkness  — 

A  rush  and  a  crash  again : 
Men  are  wailing  in  anguish, 

Women  laugh  in  their  pain  — 
As  a  prayer  that 's  prayed  by  a  grave  new  made 

Is  the  groan  of  the  coupling  chain. 

The  rails  are  splashed  with  crimson, 
There  's  blood  on  the  catcher  bar, 

The  writhing  engine  hisses 

Through  the  sky-roofed  abattoir  — 

As  the  flame  in  a  midnight  churchyard 
Is  the  light  of  each  chilly  star. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  135 

"  Out  with  the  lint  and  bandage  — 

See  are  the  stretchers  spread  — 
Out  with  a  man  to  the  signal 

And  guard  the  line  ahead. 
Haste,  and  look  to  the  living 

Before  you  bother  the  dead. 

There  's  sorrow  deeper  than  tears 
That  words  in  vain  may  speak  — 

The  tearless  mother  watches 
The  red  on  her  baby's  cheek, 

And  downcast  unwet  lashes 
Tell  of  the  hearts  that  break. 

Out  in  the  night  and  the  horror 

We  labour  and  curse  or  pray, 
"  Give  me  a  drink  of  water  —  " 

"  I  '11  meet  her  some  other  day  —  " 
We  place  the  maimed  on  the  stretchers, 

The  dead  in  the  six-foot  way. 

"  Two  inches  wide  in  the  gauging, 

Out  with  the  ramps  and  —  yes, 
The  facing  points  must  have  done  it  — 

Lord,  what  an  awful  mess! 
But  hurry  and  have  it  ready 

For  passing  the  night  express." 

"  Awful  railway  disaster" 

The  newspapers  chronicle  — 
The  men  in  the  streets  are  buying  — 

Gracious!    the  papers  sell, 
And  the  publishers  say  in  their  usual  way 

"  Business  is  doing  well." 


136  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


ON   THE    LATE    SHIFT 

Mayhap  there 's  a  hitch  in  the  signal  wire, 
Or  the  other  points  are  drawn, 

But  some  go  out  on  the  night-shift  lone 
That  never  come  in  with  the  dawn, 

And  a  crimson  splash  on  the  engine  wheel 
Just  tells  of  the  shunter  gone. 

SEVEN  waggons  to  siding  four,  one  to  the  buffer 
end  — 
Damn  you,  watch !  or  they  '11  run  you  down.     God, 

it 's  a  hellish  night ! 
Jimmy  Collins  is  getting  a  wife  —  time  he  was  making 

a  bend  — 

There  he  's  there  at  the  dead-end  points,  signalling 
with  the  light. 

"  A  good  man  out  on  the  night-shift,  Jim,  willing  — 

and  ain't  it  queer, 
There  he  's  singing,  the  first  time  I  've  heard  him 

in  my  life  — 
Yes,  willing  and  straight  is  Jimmy,  I  've  mated  him 

seven  year  — 

Damn   it,    it 's   blowing  somewhat  —  and   now   he 
looks  for  a  wife. 

"  See  and  look  to  your  carcass,  and  watch !    On  a  night 

like  this 

You  never  can   tell   the  minute  —  where  has  that 
Collins  gone  ?  — 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  137 

An  engine  punches  your  ticket  —  God,   if  your  feet 

should  miss  — 

Damn  me !    I  think  I  'm  nervous  —  signal  the  en- 
gine on. 

"  Two  o'clock !     I  was  certain  't  was  almost  break  of 

day  — 
Where  is  Collins?     Oh,  yonder.     I  'm  wet  to  the 

very  spine  — 
A  train  for  the  cross-road  siding  —  pull  it  the  other 

way  — 

Collins,   you   fool!    what  ails  you?     Jump  to  the 
other  line! 

"Collins,  you  idiot,  jump  it!  ...  Christ,  he's  down 

like  a  sack!  .  .  . 
Surely  he  must  have  heard  me.  .  .  .  Speak  to  me, 

Jimmy,  do. 
.  .  .  Tell  me  you  are  n't  hurted  —  ah !  the  blood  on 

track  — 

...  I  shifted  the  engine,  Jimmy,  but  heavens!   I 
thought  you  knew." 

"  Break  it  to  her  in  the  morning  —  I  was  thinking 

about  her,  then  — 
The  wind  was  blowing  awful  —  sudden  the  engine 

came.  .  .  . 
.  .  .  Whistle  the  box  for  the  signal.  .  .  .  Married  to 

her  at  ten. 

.  .  .  Father,  who  art  in  Heaven,  hallowed  be  Thy 
name." 

Mayhap  there  's  a  hitch  in  the  signal  wire, 
Or  the  other  points  are  drawn, 


138  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

But  a  red  stain  gleams  on  the  deadly  flange, 
And  a  night-shift  man  is  gone  — 

And  the  bride  to  be  has  changed  her  robe 
For  a  mourning  dress  at  dawn. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  139 


A   LAST   WISH 

(From  the  German  of  Sturm.) 

WHEN  my  heart  has  ceased  for  ever  beating  out 
the  dirge  of  time, 
Lay  me  by  some  quiet  river,  'neath  the  ivy  spray  and 

thyme, 

Place    no    fading,    fragrant    roses,    o'er    the    dew-be- 
sprinkled moss, 

For  the  weary  sleeper  chooses  but  the  evergreen  and 
cross. 


140  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


DREAMINGS 

THE  bog  blossom's  golden  pistil, 
The  shimmering  torrent's  crystal 

Fling  of  its  sapphire  waters,  crested  with  foam-drift 
white, 

The  moorland  and  scent  of  the  musky 
Wild  flower  borne  on  the  dusky 

Wings  of  the  wandering  breezes  that  carry  the  starry 
night, 

Come  with  dreams  of  the  wondrous  olden 
Times,  when  fancy's  golden 

Wand   lay  o'er   my   boyhood,   filling  my  mind   with 
joy  — 

I  can  see  the  moor  and  the  dimly 
Waving  gorse,  and  grimly 

The  strong  man  smiles  at  the  yearning  that  made  the 
life  of  the  boy. 

Ghosts  of  the  olden  faces, 

Voices  from  silent  places, 

Eyes  that  are  filled  with  laughter,  eyes  that  with  tears 
are  wet, 

Into  the  days  so  gloomy 

Come  in  my  musings  to  me  — 
One  who  has  ne'er  forgotten,  one  who  can  ne'er  forget. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  141 


MATER   DOLOROSA 

HE  raised  the  latch  iv  his  father's  door, 
An'  went,  the  dark  look  on  his  face  - 
I  wait  an'  wait  him  ivermore, 
On  him  I  wait  for  ivermore, 
As  not  a  wan  can  fill  his  place. 

The  kine  go  east  at  dawn  iv  day, 

In  the  cold  grey  dawn  I  tell  my  beads, 

But  out  in  the  wurP  an'  miles  away, 

An'  miles  an'  miles  so  far  away 
My  Fergus  lives  an'  niver  heeds. 

The  kine  come  back  to  me  at  eve, 
But  still  he  never  comes  anigh; 
Through  all  the  night  I  pray  an'  grieve, 
Through  all  the  long,  black  night  I  grieve, 
An'  pray  to  God,  an'  cry  an'  cry. 

An'  "  Mary  pity  me,"  I  pray, 

I  pray  to  God,  "  Thy  will  be  done," 

But  more  to  her  my  prayers  I  say, 

To  Mary,  Mother,  more  I  say, 
For  long  ago  she  lost  her  Son. 

I  look  in  the  fire  an'  think  an'  sing, 

An'  sing  the  songs  he  liked  to  hear, 
An'  often  to  my  mind  I  bring 
His  form  an'  face,  so  well  I  bring, 
I  think  that  he  is  very  near. 


142  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

I  weep  thro'  all  the  lonely  night, 

An'  pray  an'  pray  upon  my  knees, 
That  maybe  with  the  morrow's  light 
He  '11  come  back,  with  the  morrow's  light 
For  Mary,  Mother,  hears  an'  sees. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  143 


UNFULFILLED 

THERE  is  dew  upon  the  meadows  brightly  glanc- 
ing in  the  morn, 

And  a  blush  of  softest  crimson  comes  across  the  wav- 
ing corn, 
And  the  waters  brightly  gleaming  journey  onward  to 

the  sea, 

But   nought   fulfils   the  promise   that  the   Springtime 
made  to  me. 


'T  is  the  olden,  olden  story,  with  its  hope  and  with 

its  pain, 
Loved  awhile  with  deep  devotion,  never  to  be  loved 

again  — 
Oft   again   will    gentle    Springtime    paint   the   flower 

and  tint  the  tree, 
But    the    soft-voiced     Spring    will    never    bring    its 

second  hopes  to  me. 


Oft  will  mem'ry's  fairy  musings  light  upon  the  past 

again, 
Ere  the  spell  of  love  was  broken  by  the  alchemy  of 

pain  — 
We  were  young,  and  we  were  happy,  trusting  in  the 

future  —  we  — 
But  the  present 's  full  of  sorrow,  and  the  sorrow  falls 

on   me. 


144  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

There  is  dew  upon  the  meadows  brightly  glancing  in 

the  morn, 
And  a  crimson  blush  of  promise  rises  on  the  waving 

corn, 
And  the  earth  with  hope  is  pregnant;    howsoever  it 

may  be, 
It  can  ne'er  fulfil  the  promise  that  the   Springtime 

made  to  me. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  145 


THE   VALLEY 

A  FAIRY-LIKE    valley,    with    grim    mountains 
hiding  it, 

Peacefully  sleeping  'mong  meadow-lands  fair, 
A  river  of  carmine  and  silver  dividing  it, 

And  scent  of  the  wild-flowers  filling  the  air. 
Never  a  grey  mist  comes  earthwards  enshrouding  it, 

There  never  weepeth  the  cypress  or  yew, 
Only  the  night-shadows  lovingly  clouding  it, 
Or  trellised  cirrus  with  stars  peeping  through. 

Up  by  the  braes,  there  the  heather  bells  cluster, 

Where  the  wind-flower  blooms  and  the  gorse-blos- 

soms  be 
Guarding  the  lane,  see  the  bright  daisies  muster 

The  starry  battalions  by  hedgerow  and  tree. 
Over  the  sedges  a  streamlet  is  flinging  its 

Frivolous  waters  in  vermeil-tinged  spray, 
Over  the  fallow  a  wild  bird  is  singing  its 

Song  of  delight  to  the  ears  of  the  day. 

A  woodland  is  there  and  the  blackberries  grow  in  it, 

And  grey  gnarled  oaks  that  the  ages  have  bent, 
Blossoms  as  white  and  as  pure  as  the  snow  in  it, 

Fair  as  the  stars  in  the  deep  firmament. 
A   shadowy   pool   where   the   green   water-cresses  are 

Languidly  floating  in  sensuous  rest, 
Is  hidden  'mid  ferns  that  with  tremulous  tresses  are 

Playing  with  glee  in  the  breath  of  the  west. 


146  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

A  valley  of  dreams,  with  the  dim  mountains  hiding  it, 
Streamlets  of  silver  through  meadow-lands  fair, 

A  river  of  carmine  and  sapphire  dividing  it, 
And  scent  of  the  wild  flowers  rilling  the  air. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  147 


A  TALE   OF  THE   BOGLAND 

TIS  meself  that  hates  the  city,  an'  the  hurry,  an' 
the  din  — 

An'  I  wish  that  I  was  out  of  it,  its  worry  an'  its  sin, 
For  me  mind  is  on  the  bogland,  when  the  day  is  drear 

an'  dim ; 

I  could  be  happy  all  me  life,  if  I  was  back  with  him. 
But  the  wurl  is  up  agin'  me,  an'  so  bitter  is  me  heart, 
For  he  is  on  the  bogland  yet,  an'  I  am  far  apart. 

'T  is  meself  that  loved  the  bogland  stretchin'  out  agin' 

the  sky, 
With  the  summer  flowers  a-blowin'  an'  the  peat-stacks 

gettin'  dry; 
There  was  dew  upon  the  heather  at  the  dawnin'  o'  the 

day, 
An'  the  rushes  in  the  marshes  ever  sung  their  sleepy 

lay, 
An'  he  told  me  in  the  gloamin'  that  I  won  his  manly 

heart, 
But  he  is  on  the  bogland  yet,  an'  I  am  far  apart. 

'T  is  meself  that  loved  to  linger  when  the  big  red  sun 

went  down, 
An'   the   purple   heavens  rested  on   the  bogland  lone 

an'  brown; 
I  told  him  when  I  met  him  that  I  loved  the  evenin' 

air, 
Tho'  glorious  the  evenin'  well  I  knew  he  would  be 

there, 


148  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

An'  he  loved  me  with  devotion,  an'  he  pressed  me  to 

his  heart, 
But  he  is  on  the  bogland  yet,  an'  I  am  far  apart. 

'T  is  meself  regrets  the  hour  that  I  met  the  stranger 

there, 

But  he  had  got  a  manner  fine  an'  such  a  pleasant  air; 
He  told  me  of  the  wonder  sights  an'  glories  of  the 

town 
Until  me  eyes  grew  weary  of  the  bogland 's  waste  of 

brown, 
But   though   the  strangers'  halls  are  fine,   mine   is  a 

broken  heart, 
For  he  is  on  the  bogland  yet,  an'  I  am  far  apart. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  149 


LONGINGS 

(Burns  model  lodging-house,  1910.) 

THERE  is  clatter  on  the  pavement,  there  is  hurry 
in  the  street, 

The  curtains  of  the  night  are  dropping  down, 
The  heart-throbs  of  the  city  clang  with  dull  insistent 

beat, 

The  gas  lights  glimmer  faintly  thro'  the  town  — 
The  ten-hour  shift  is  laboured,  and  the  gaffer's  voice 

is  still, 

And  my  thoughts  go  o'er  the  ocean  surge  afar, 
To  the  meadow  and  the  river  and  the  boreen  and  the 

hill, 
And  the  little  lime-washed  cottage  in  Kilcar. 

I  have  seen  the  crimson  dawning  of  a  Spanish  morn- 
ing glow, 

I  have  cowered  before  the  menace  of  the  wild, 
I  have  seen  the  sapphire  sunlight  tint  the  everlasting 

snow 

Where  December's  virgin  granaries  are  piled, 
I  have  heard  the  mountain  torrents  hurtle  riotous  in 

wrath, 

I  have  tramped  the  roads  to  London  and  to  Rome, 
But   I  'd  rather  have  my  childhood   and  the  narrow 

moorland  path, 

The  path  that  leads  to  happiness  and  home. 
I  am  sitting  by  the  hot-plate  and  my  comrades  talk 

about 

The  things  they  Ve  done  and  which  they  should  n't 
do, 


150  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

I  have  been  their  pal  in  sinning,  and  I  Ve  got  to  grin 

it  out, 

And  the  harvest  of  my  oats  is  overdue  — 
'T  is  not  so  much  the  slaving  in  the  sewerage  of  life, 

'T  is  not  so  much  the  toiling  and  the  wet, 
'T  is  not  so  much  the  curbing  of  my  hatred  of  the 

strife, 
But  the  shattered  dreams  I  never  can  forget. 

The  shrines  the  world  has  broken  were  the  shrines 
at  which  I  knelt, 

And  the  faith  I  cherished  so  it  laughed  to  shame, 
But  God  alone  in  Heaven  knows  the  sufferings  I  felt, 

When  I  sold  my  youth's  ideals  for  a  name, 
And  pawned  my  simple  virtues  for  a  meed  of  evil 
praise, 

Ah,  I  pledged  them  where  I  never  could  redeem, 
Tho'  to  many  it  was  merely  just  a  love  of  newer  ways, 

To  me  it  was  the  waking  from  a  dream. 

They  are  rough  and  rugged  fellows,  my  companions 

sworn  and  true, 

And  maybe  I  am  rough  and  rude  as  they  — 
But  oh,  heavens !  how  they  'd  mock  me,  if  by  chance 

they  ever  knew 

That  I  hankered  for  a  cabin  miles  away  — 
Where  it  stands  above   the  shingle   that   the   waters 

whirl  upon, 

As  they  race  across  the  sandhill  and  the  bar  — 
That  I  long  for  it  by  night,  dreaming  by  the  hot-plate 

bright, 
My  father's  homely  cottage  in  Kilcar. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  151 

GOING   HOME 

(Doherty's  shack,  1909.) 

I'M  going  back  to  Glenties  when  the  harvest  fields 
are  brown, 

And  the  Autumn  sunset  lingers  on  my  little  Irish 
town, 

When  the  gossamer  is  shining  where  the  moorland 
blossoms  blow 

I  '11  take  the  road  across  the  hills  I  tramped  so  long 
ago  — 

'T  is  far  I  am  beyond  the  seas,  but  yearning  voices  call, 

"  Will  you  not  come  back  to  Glenties,  and  your  wave- 
washed  Donegal  ?  " 

I  Ve  seen  the  hopes  of  childhood  stifled  by  the  hand  of 

time, 
I  Ve  seen  the  smile  of  innocence  become  the  frown  of 

crime, 
I  Ve  seen  the  wrong  rise  high  and  strong,   I  Ve  seen 

the  fair  betrayed, 
Until  the  faltering  heart  fell  low,  the  brave  became 

afraid  — 
But  still  the  cry  comes  out  to  me,  the  homely  voices 

call, 
From  the  Glen  among  the  highlands  of  my  ancient 

Donegal. 

Sure,  I  think  I  see  them  often,  when  the  night  is  on 

the  town, 
The  Braes  of  old  Strasala,  and  the  homes  of  Carrig- 

doun  — 


152  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

There  's  a  light  in  Jimmy  Lynch's  house,  a  shadow  on 
the  blind, 

I  often  watched  the  shadow,  for  'twas  Mary  in  be- 
hind, 

And  often  in  the  darkness,  't  is  myself  that  sees  it  all, 

For  I  cannot  help  but  dreaming  of  the  folk  in  Donegal. 

So  I  '11  hie  me  back  to  Glenties  when  the  harvest  comes 
again, 

And  the  kine  are  in  the  pasture  and  the  berries  in  the 
lane, 

Then  they  '11  give  me  such  a  handshake  that  my  heart 
will  leap  with  joy, 

When  a  father  and  a  mother  welcome  back  their  way- 
ward boy. 

So  I  'm  going  back  to  Glenties  when  the  autumn 
showers  fall, 

And  the  harvest  home  is  cheery  in  my  dear  old 
Donegal. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  153 


THE   RETURN 

THE  boy  came  home  from  a  foreign  land, 
Weary  and  wan,  with  his  staff  in  hand ; 
Five  years'  absence  had  left  their  trace 
On  golden  hair,  and  on  sunny  face. 
His  gait  was  weary,  his  limbs  were  sore; 
His  youthful  friends  knew  him  no  more. 
The  grey-haired  padre  passed  him  by 
Unrecognised.     With  a  heedless  eye 
The  toll  gatekeeper  saw  him  pass  and  go 
Up  the  dusty  road,  but  in  years  ago, 
The  boy  was  the  dearest  friend  he  had, 
But  the  tollman's  eyes  with  the  years  grew  bad. 
As  fair  as  of  old  'neath  her  summer  hat, 
At  the  cottage  door  his  sweetheart  sat, 
But  the  white  dust  rose  from  the  road  on  high, 
And  she  knew  him  not  as  he  passed  her  by. 
He  entered  his  home  with  footsteps  slow  — 
His  friends  forgot  him,  would  his  parents  know? 
"  God  bless  you,  stranger,"  the  father  cries, 
But  the  sun  shone  strong  in  the  old  man's  eyes. 
But  the  mother  wept  on  his  neck  with  joy  — 
"  My  son,  my  son,  my  wandering  boy." 


154  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


HOME 

I'M  back  again  in  Glenties  and  the  Autumn  wind 
is  blowing, 

The  silver-sandalled  evening  skips  across  the  moun- 
tains high, 
But  the  bogland  flowers  are  fading  where  of  old   I 

watched  them  growing, 

And  the  lean  leaves  of  Lammas  tide  are  whirling  thro' 
the  sky. 

The  bogland  flowers  are  fading,  and  I  mark  them  as 
a  token 

Of  the  early  hopes  I  cherished  to  my  sorrow  and  re- 
gret ; 

The  silver  cord  is  loosened,  and  the  golden  bowl  is 
broken, 

And  another  heart  is  wearisome  and  longing  to  forget. 

The  slender  threads  of  gossamer  are  shining  on  the 

heather, 
The  little  brooks  are  tumbling  as  they  hurry  to  and 

fro, 
I   tramp   along  the  boreen   that  we   tramped   of  old 

together, 
My  love  and  I  together  in  the  days  of  long  ago. 

The  road  across  the  moorland  sure  it 's  twisting  an' 

it 's  turning 
Round  the  braes  of  old   Strasala  and  the  heights  of 

Carrigdoun, 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  155 

But  in  the  mellow  Autumn  dusk  one  lamp  has  ceased 

from  burning, 
And  a  hearth   is   cold   and   cheerless  on   the  way  to 

Glenties  town. 

I  '11  leave  my  home  again  and  I  '11  bid  good-bye  to- 
morrow, 

And  I  '11  pass  the  little  churchyard  and  the  tomb 
a-near  the  wall, 

I  have  lived  so  much  for  love  I  can  hardly  live  for 
sorrow 

By  the  grave  that  holds  my  colleen  in  a  glen  of 
Donegal. 


156  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE    DEPARTED 

DOWN  from  the  open  spaces  where  the  banshee 
wails  to  the  moon, 
From  the  lonely  moorland  places  where  the  witches 

hold  domain, 
Like  a  ghost  of  the  past  the  midnight  blast  wails  at  my 

window  pane, 

Out  of  the  night  and  the  silence  it  comes  to  my  window 
pane, 

Full  of  a  longing  vain 
It  has  wafted  thro'  her  burial  shroud,  and  the  matted 

coils  of  her  hair, 
Where  the  ghouls  of  the  gloom  foregather  over  the 

tomb  wherein 
She  moulders  away  to  the  senseless  clay  —  she  who 

was  free  from  sin. 

Heaven!  the  grave  and  its  horrors,  ugly  and  dark  as 
sin, 

And  the  beautiful  maid  therein! 


Sunlight  and  moonlight  and  starlight,  interblent  with 
the  dew, 

The  modesty  of  the  passion  flower,  the  youthful,  hope- 
ful glow  — 

She  was  greater  to  me  than  the  world  to  be,  than  any- 
thing mortals  know, 

Greater  by  far  than  life  or  death,  or  aught  that  the 
mortals  know 

In  this  evil-starred  world  below. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  157 

And  the  weeping  wind  in  the  darkness  lingers  around 

her  tomb, 
Presses  her  clay  cold  tresses  and  lips  where  my  lips 

have  lain, 
And  I  hear  it  say  in  its  wistful  way  —  When  do  we 

meet  again? 
When  do  you  meet  your  olden  love  and  keep  your 

tryst  again? 

Says  the  wind  at  the  window  pane. 


158  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


HEROES 

What  is  a  man?    Not  ours  to  ask, 

Not  ours  to  make  reply. 
But  from  Southampton  to  the  Clyde 

Can  Britain  testify  — 
That  they  are  men  and  more  than  men 

Who  know  the  way  to  die. 

THE  little  blue  fox  has  seen  it  break  apart  from 
the  riven  floe, 

The  little  blue  fox  of  the  Arctic  waste  that  seeks  its 
food  in  the  snow ; 

On  gale-gored  beach  and  wave-washed  cliff  the  bear 
has  seen  it  reel, 

The  polar  bear  as  it  left  its  lair  to  hunt  for  the  frozen 
seal. 

The  lone  moose  bull  on  some  outcast  cape  has  won- 
dered to  see  it  pass, 

As  it  shuffled  the  snow  off  its  feeding  grounds  and 
sought  for  the  meagre  grass. 


The  sealer  scurried  from  out  its  track,  and  the  fright- 
ened whaler  fled, 

For  the  derelict  berg  on  the  fishing  seas  is  a  thing  of 
fear  and  dread. 

'T  was  battered  and  worn  by  icy  waves  and  swept  by 
their  madd'ning  wrath, 

And  the  Northern  Lights  came  out  at  night  to  glare 
on  its  lonely  path. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  159 

But  ever  and  on   'neath  the  dusk  and   dawn  to  the 

southern  seas  it  bore, 
With  the  lean  locked  lands  of  the  north  astern  and 

the  trackless  seas  before. 

Proudly   she   swung   from   the   crowded   pier,   as   the 

mooring  chains  ran  free, 
Virgin  pure  from  the  Belfast  docks,  to  the  olden  trail 

of  the  sea. 
As    the   music    swelled    from    the    fading   beach,    the 

pounding  screws  replied, 
And  the  grey,  lank  waves  went  gliding  by,  an  arm's 

reach  overside. 
Alas!  for  the  joy  of  the  lover  and  maid,  alas!  for  the 

children  gay  — 
The  little  blue  fox  on  the  Arctic  waste  is  safer  by 

far  than  they. 

West!  and  the  English  fields  grew  dim,  and  the  coast- 
wise lights  shone  clear. 

Say,  did  they  laugh  on  the  crowded  decks,  and  the 
doom  so  very  near? 

West!  and  the  coastwise  lights  gave  out,  and  the  stars 
of  heaven  shone, 

And  the  sailor  watched  through  the  midnight  hour, 
aloof,  apart,  alone. 

South !  'neath  the  sinister  polar  star  the  death-bearing 

berg  went  forth. 
Oh!   they  who  sail  on  herded  seas  should   dread  the 

Doom  of  the  North. 
May  Heaven  pity  the  sailor  man,  when  the  Northern 

Doom  's  abroad, 
For  the  ship  is  built  by  the  human  hand,  the  berg  by 

the  hand  of  God. 


160  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

The  stars  looked  down  from  the  lonely  sky  —  as  they 

looked  on  the  polar  snow 
Where  the  bear  had  eaten  the  little  blue  fox  it  killed 

by  the  Arctic  floe. 

Say,  was  the  joke  in  the  stateroom  heard,  the  laugh 
on  the  maiden's  lips? 

Lord  of  the  waves!  have  pity  on  men  who  go  down  to 
the  sea  in  ships. 

Say,  did  the  grimy  stoker  smile  in  the  heat  of  the  fur- 
nace breath? 

We  do  not  know,  but  this  we  know,  he  laughed  in 
the  face  of  Death. 

Say,  did  the  lover  hurry  and  fret  to  come  to  his  sweet- 
heart's side? 

We  only  know,  when  the  davits  swung,  he  gallantly 
stood  aside. 

And  some  there  were,  whose  life  and  work  was  much 
misunderstood, 

But  in  the  hour  that  tried  their  souls,  we  know  their 
death  was  good. 

And  greater  by  far  than  deeds  of  war  or  right  or  a 
grand  mistake 

Is  a  life  that  is  given  in  sacrifice  for  a  child  or  a 
woman's  sake. 

What  is  a  man?    Not  ours  to  ask, 

Nor  yet  to  make  reply. 
But  from  Southampton  to  the  Clyde 

Can  Britain  testify 
That  they  are  men  and  more  than  men 

Who  know  the  way  to  die. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  161 


THE   OLD   LURE 

(Fleet  Street,  1912.) 

WHEN  the  gaunt  night  covers  the  city, 
And  the  fog  drifts  down  the  wind, 
I  sit  in  my  study  thinking 
Of  the  pals  I  left  behind; 
And  the  old  lure  of  the  old  life 
Enters  into  my  mind. 

I  'm  sick  of  the  books  before  me, 
And  the  sorry  lore  that  they  hold; 

And  I  long  for  the  full-blooded  lusty  youth, 
That  passed  like  a  tale  that 's  told. 

Oh!  the  old  life  is  the  sweetest  life; 
And  my  heart  goes  back  to  the  old 

Dibble  and  drift  and  drill, 

Ratchet  and  rail  and  rod, 
Shovel  and  spanner  and  screw, 

Hard-hafted  hammer  and  hod, 
The  rattle  of  wheels  on  the  facing  points, 

And  the  smell  of  the  rain-washed  sod. 

The  call  of  a  wondrous  past 

Is  throbbing  in  my  heart-strings, 

The  danger-lights  aflare 

Where  the  hooded  signal  swings, 

The  clash  of  the  closing  blades, 
As  the  straining  point-rod  springs. 


1 62  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

The  old  friend  is  the  best  friend, 

He  who  has  stood  the  test: 
The  old  song  is  the  sweetest  song, 

Sweeter  than  all  the  rest. 
And  the  old  life  that  I  left  behind 

Is  far  and  away  the  best. 

When  I  go  back  to  the  old  pals, 
'T  is  a  glad,  glad  boy  I  '11  be ; 

With  them  will  I  share  the  doss-house  bunk, 
And  join  their  revels  with  glee ; 

And  the  lean  men  of  the  lone  shacks 
Shall  share  their  tucker  with  me. 

My  hobnailed  bluchers  I  shall  put  on, 

Firm  in  welt  and  vamp, 
And  get  me  moleskin  and  corduroy, 

Proof  to  the  dirt  and  damp, 
And  sweat  on  the  shift  with  the  navvy-men 

And  doss  again  with  the  tramp. 

Where  the  sunsets  flame  on  the  offside  track 

Amber  and  cochineal, 
Where  the  dawn  breaks,  a  waking  rose, 

I  '11  beg  and  starve  and-  steal, 
Or  hash  with  the  stiff-lipped  nawy-men, 

And  feel  as  I  used  to  feel. 

'T  is  oh !  for  the  hot-plate  reeking  red, 
When  the  naphtha  lamps  are  lit, 

As  the  jokes  go  round  the  gambling  school 
Told  with  a  ready  wit, 

The  well-won  rest  of  a  slavish  day, 
The  joy  and  glamour  of  it! 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  163 

Sick  indeed  of  the  city  am  I, 

Its  make-believe  and  its  show, 
The  roar  and  rush  of  the  crowded  streets 

Where  men  run  to  and  fro. 
For  I  've  hashed  in  the  drift  for  seven  year, 

And  back  to  the  drift  I  '11  go, 
Back  to  the  men  of  the  lone  lank  lands 

And  the  pals  of  long  ago. 


164  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 


THE   LAST   RHYME,    SAVE   ONE 

I  have  gathered  a  poise  of  other  men's  flowers,  and  nothing 
but  the  thread  that  binds  them  is  mine  own.  —  MONTAIGNE. 

I'VE  sung  in  a  wayward  fashion 
The  song  of  a  rugged  heart, 
With  less  of  power  than  of  passion, 

With  more  of  desire  than  art, 
Tales  of  roving  and  roaming, 

Stories  of  daring  done, 
While  ye  wait  for  the  poet  coming  — 
The  singer  of  later  on. 


From  drear  and  deserted  places, 

Where  the  wastes  of  creation  lie, 
Where  the  pitiless  hail-cloud  races 

Over  the  merciless  sky, 
On  the  offside  of  desolation 

When  the  fog  is  fetid  and  dense, 
In  the  watchman's  reeking  station 

Guarding  the  sliprail  fence, 
Tales  of  the  great  unholy, 

Lazily,  lovingly,  long, 
I  Ve  gathered  in  byways  lowly 

And  fashioned  them  into  song. 

The  rime  of  the  roving  fellow 
Who  dreams  by  the  midnight  fire, 

When  the  autumn  leaves  are  yellow 
And  sere  as  his  youth's  desire. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  165 

The  dirge  of  the  loosened  boulder 

And  the  thing  that  gasps  beneath, 
While  the  hod  is  yet  on  the  shoulder, 

The  pipe  is  yet  in  the  teeth, 
Of  the  dynamite  in  the  boring, 

That  did  n't  go  off  when  it  should, 
And  the  pick  that  went  exploring, 

And  the  pal  who  left  for  good  — 
For  ever  the  signal  reddens, 

For  ever  is  danger  near, 
And  the  sound  of  the  up-train  deadens 

The  down-train's  roar  in  the  ear. 


Thus  have  I  sung  their  story, 

That  wondrous  story  of  theirs, 
The  navvies'  sorrow  and  glory, 

And  death  that  is  unawares, 
But  under  the  rougher  singing, 

In  a  quivering  undertone, 
Perchance  you  will  hear  it  ringing, 

A  song  that  is  all  mine  own, 
Out  of  its  rough  environs, 

The  roar  of  the  running  cars, 
The  lilt  of  the  canting  irons, 

The  rune  of  the  lifting  bars, 
Apart  from  the  navvy  quarrels, 

Card-school  riot  and  song, 
Manners,  merits  and  morals, 

And  chivalry  —  going  wrong  — 
Perchance  that  you  will  discover 

Under   the   rugged   art 
The  voice  of  the  nature  lover, 

The  song  of  the  singer's  heart. 


1 66  Songs  of  the  Dead  End 

A  poet  will  follow  after, 

A  poet  of  later  years, 
To  sing  of  their  joy  and  laughter, 

And  weep  for  their  woe  and  tears, 
Striking  the  tuneful  lyre 

Greater  than  me  by  far, 
As  the  rose  outrivals  the  briar, 

As  the  sun  outrivals  the  star, 
And  the  songs  I  sing  in  the  gloaming 

May  turn  to  nought  in  the  dawn 
That  beams  for  the  singer  coming, 

The  poet  of  later  on. 


Songs  of  the  Dead  End  167 


L'ENVOI  — TO    MY    PICK    AND    SHOVEL 

When  the  last,  long  shift  will  be  laboured,  and  the 

lying  time  will  be  burst, 
And   we   go   as  picks   or   shovels,   navvies   or  nabobs, 

must, 
When  you  go   up   on  the  scrap-heap  and  I  go  down 

to  the  dust, 

Will  ever  a  one  remember  the  times  our  voices  rung, 
When  you  were  limber  and  lissome,  and  I  was  lusty 

and  young? 
Remember  the  jobs  we  've  laboured,  the  heartful  songs 

we  've  sung? 

Perhaps  some  mortal  in  speaking  will  give  us  a  kindly 

thought  — 
"  There  is  a  muck-pile  they   shifted,   here  is  a  place 

where  they  wrought." 
But  maybe  our  straining  and  striving  and  singing  w-ill 

go  for  nought, 

When  you  go  up  on  the  scrap-heap,  and  I  go  down 

to  the  dust  — 
(Little  children  of  labour,  food  for  the  worms  and 

the  rust,) 
When  the  last  long  shift  will  be  laboured  and  the 

lying  time  will  be  burst. 


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